
Book-^BaMf-- 
Copyright N° - 

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» 



it? 




REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 




PLYMOUTH CHURCH, BROOKLYN, ON THE 28TH OF AUGUST, 1874. 



THE 

TBUE HISTOKT 

OF THE 

Brooklyn Scandal: 

BEING 

A COMPLETE ACCOUNT OF THE TRIAL OF THE REV. HENRY WARD 
BEECHER, OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH, BROOKLYN, UPON CHARGES 
PREFERRED BY THEODORE TILTON, INCLUDING ALL THE 
ORIGINAL LETTERS, DOCUMENTS AND PRIVATE CORRE- 
SPONDENCE, WITH BIOGRAPHIES OF THE LEADING 
ACTORS IN THE GREAT DRAMA. 

CONTAINING ALSO THE FULL STATEMENTS OF 

MOULTON, BEECHER, AND TILTON, 

AND Mii\Y ADDITIONAL FACTS, PRIVATE LETTERS, ETC., KEYER BEFORE PUBLISHED. 

BY 

CHAELES F. MAESHALL. 
it 

Illustrate! will numerous Fine Engrayiuss and Portraits. 



Issued by subscription only, and not for sale in the bookstores. Residents of auy State desiring 
a copy should address the Publishers, and an Agent will call upon tbcni. (See pago 611.) 






NATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

PHILADELPHIA, Pa.; CHICAGO, III.; ST. LOUIS, Mo. 



^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 187 ', by 

J. R. JONES, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



PKEFACE 



The great and overwhelming interest manifested by 
the American people in the investigation of the charges 
preferred by Theodore Tilton against the Rev. Henry 
Ward Beecher cannot be credited to a national love for 
scandal, but rather to a desire that one who has for 
long years stood first in their regards as a religious 
teacher and counsellor should vindicate himself from 
the terrible accusations made against him. Men said : 
" If this man, whom we have loved and honored so 
long for his .pure life as well as for his great genius, 
shall be proven a hypocrite and a libertine, whom shall 
we trust ? " Mr. Beecher's reputation is esteemed a 
national honor, and his countrymen have watched 
every stage of the charges against him with the deepest 
interest, and have rejoiced in his triumphant vindica- 
tion as at the defeat of an effort to cast a stain upon 
the fair name of the Great Republic of the West. 

In spite of this great interest, the reports of the 
trial, and the statements of the principal actors in it, 
were presented to the great mass of the people in a 
very incomplete form. The testimony was so volumi- 
nous, and the statements so numerous and long, that 
even the great daily papers of the largest cities had not 
room in their columns for the whole case. The great 
majority of the newspapers of the Union were only 

13 



14 PREFACE. 

able to publish brief extracts from the statements and 
summaries of the investigation, so that the case has 
gone out to the public in a fragmentary and unsat- 
isfactory manner. The people at large have not yet 
had the means of learning the whole case, which alone 
can qualify them for forming an intelligent conclusion 
concerning the matters at issue. There has been a de- 
mand from all parts of the country for a connected 
and chronologically arranged account of the Brooklyn 
scandal, giving its history, and presenting all the docu- 
ments necessary to the forming of a fair opinion on the 
part of the reader. 

Such a work is offered to the public in the present 
volume. In these pages the history of the charges 
against Mr. Beecher is traced from their inception down 
to the acquittal of Mr. Beecher by the Investigating 
Committee of Plymouth Church, with such comments 
and explanations as are necessary to a proper under- 
standing of the matter. Every document bearing upon 
the case, including the statements of the principal 
actors in the controversy, the evidence of the principal 
witnesses examined by the Investigating Committee, 
the report of that committee, and the events that have 
occurred since the close of the investigation — all these 
are given in their proper order, together with biogra- 
phies of the principal personages concerned. In short, 
the case is presented complete, and in such shape as 
will enable the reader to decide it upon its own merits. 
While the compiler has a very decided opinion as to 
the reasonable conclusion to be drawn from this case, 
the facts speak for themselves, and have been left to 
do so in the main. 




THEODORE TILTON. 



CONTENTS 



I.— Mrs. Woodhull's Charges 17 

II.— Plymouth Church Takes Action in the Matter 32 

III.— The Congregational Council 35 

IV.— Dr. Bacon's Speech 40 

V.— Mr. Tilton's Reply to Dr. Bacon 42 

VI.— Mr. Beecher Demands an Investigation 63 

VII.— Life of Henry Ward Beecher 65 

VIII.— Life of Theodore Tilton 93 

IX.— Life of Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton 103 

X.— The Investigating Committee 106 

XL— Mr. Moulton's First Appearance 109 

XII.— Mr. Tilton 's Sworn Statement 112 

XIII.— Tilton's Cross-Examination 130 

XIV.— Mr. Beecher's Denial 177 

XV.— Mrs. Tilton's Statement 181 

XVI.— Mrs. Tilton's Cross-Examination 18S 

XVII.— The Case in Court 214 

XVIII.— Mr. Beecher Demands his Letters 223 

XIX.— Mr. Moulton's Second Appearance 240 

15 



16 CONTENTS. 

XX.— Life of Francis D. Moulton 241 

XXI. — Mr. Moulton's Third Appearance 245 

XXII.— Mr. Beecher 's Defence 251 

XXIII.— Cross-Examination of Mr. Beecher 286 

XXIV.— Mr. Moulton's First Statement 307 

XXV.— Bessie Turner's Evidence 390 

XVI. — Kev. Mr. Halliday's Statement 400 

XXVII.— The Eeport of the Investigating Committee 405 

XX VIII.— The Scene at Plymouth Church 433 

XXIX.— Mr. Moulton Explains His Action 438 

XXX.— Mr. Tilton Sues Mr. Beeciier for Damages. . 446 

XXXI.— Mr. Moulton's Last Statement 448 

XXXII.— Mr. Moulton Sued for Libel 507 

XXXIII.— Theodore Tilton 's Last Statement 515 

XXXIV.— Public Confidence in Mr. Beeciier 597 

XXXV.— Mr. Beecher Sues Tilton and Moulton for 

Malicious Libel 606 



-A 




MRS. ELIZABETH R. TILTON. 



THE 

TRUE HISTORY 



OF THE 



BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 



I. 
MRS. WOODHULL'S CHARGES. 

In September, 1872, Mrs. Victoria Woodhull was 
re-elected President of the National Association of 
Spiritualists at Boston, and in her speech of acceptance 
made a bitter personal attack upon the Rev. Henry 
Ward Beecher. The Boston newspapers suppressed 
the most of her remarks. At length, after giving out 
several vague hints of her charges, she published them 
in full in her journal known as Woodhull <£ Clqfflin* 
Weekly, on the 2d of November, 1872. In this article, 
after asserting that Mr. Beecher was a believer in the 
most advanced doctrines of free-love and the abolition 
of Christian marriage, as held and advocated by her- 
self, she asserted that Mr. Tilton had informed her that 
he had discovered a criminal intimacy between his wife 
and Mr. Beecher. The statements thus made public 
were given by Mrs. Woodhull in the form of a conver- 
sation between a reporter and herself. The following 
passages contain the substance of her story : 

17 



18 



THE TRUE HISTORY OF 



It was brought up subsequently , in ail i ntimate con . 
versation between her and me, by Mrs. Pauline Wright 
Uavis, without any seeking on my part, and to my very 
great surprise. Mrs. Davis had been, it seems, a fre- 
quent visitor at Mr. T * * * house in Brooklyn-they 
having long been associated in the Woman's Rights 
movement-and she stood upon certain terms of inti- 
macy m the family. Almost at the same time to which 
1 have referred, when I was in Washington, she called, 

as she told me, at Mr. 
T * * * Mrs. T * * * 
met her at the door 
and burst into tears, 
exclaiming: < Oh, Mrs. 
Davis ! have you come 
to see me? For six 
months I have been 
' shut up from the world, 
and I thought no one 
would ever come again 
to visit me.' In the in- 
terview that followed, 
Mrs. * * * spoke freely 
of a long series of in- 
timate and so-called 
i . " criminal relations on 

her part with a certain clergyman- of th. / 
of the facts by Mr T * * * Tf / u T™* 

e „ff a c , > of tne abuse she had 

uffered from h.m in consequence, and of her hea t- 

thtrji t,on - „ She seemed to a,iude to «» *2 

Jang a to something already generally known or 
-own ? . considerable circle, and impossible to' Z 
concealed, and attributed the long absence of Mr7 




Mrs. Victoria C. Woodhull. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 19 

Davis from the house to her knowledge of the facts. 
She was, as she stated at the time, recovering from the 
effects of a miscarriage of a child of six months. The 
miscarriage was induced by the ill-treatment of Mr. 
T * * * in his rage at the discovery of such intimacy, 
and, as he believed, the great probability that she was 
enceinte, but not by him. Mrs. T * * * confessed to 
Mrs. Davis the intimacy with this clergyman, and that 
it had been of years' standing. She also said that she 
loved him before she married Mr. T * * *, and that 
now the burden of lier sorrow was greatly augmented 
by the knowledge that the clergyman was untrue to 
her. She had not only to endure the rupture with her 
husband, but also the certainty that, notwithstanding 
his repeated assurance of his faithfulness to her, he had 
recently had illicit intercourse, under most extraordi- 
nary circumstances, with another person. Said Mrs. 
Davis : ' I came away from that house, my soul bowed 
down with grief at the heart-broken condition of that 
poor woman, and I felt that I ought not to leave 
Brooklyn until I had stripped the mask from that 
infamous, hypocritical scoundrel/ 

" * * It seems that Mr. T * * * in agony at the 
discovery of what he deemed his wife's perfidy and his 
pastors treachery, retreated to Mrs. Stanton's residence 
at Tenafly, where he detailed to her the entire story. 
Said Mrs. Stanton : < I never saw such a manifestation 
of mental agony. He raved and tore his hair, and 
seemed upon the very verge of insanity.' ' Oh ! ' said he, 
that that damned lecherous scoundrel should have de- 
filed my bed for ten years, and at the same time have 
professed to be my best friend ! Had he come like a 
man to me and confessed his guilt, I could perhaps 



20 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

have endured it, but to have him creep like a snake 
into my house, leaving his pollution behind him, and I 
so blind as not to see, and esteeming him all the while 
as a saint — oh ! it is too much. And when I think 
how for years she, upon whom I had bestowed all my 
heart's love, could have lied and deceived me so, I lose 
all faith in humanity. I do not believe there is any 
honor, any truth left in anybody in the world.' Mrs. 
Stanton continued and repeated to me the sad story, 
which it is unnecessary to recite, as I prefer giving it 
as Mr. T- * * * himself told it to me, subsequently, 
with his own lips." 

Keporter. — "Is it possible that Mr. T * * * con- 
fided this story to you ? It seems too monstrous to be 
believed ! " 

Mrs. Woodhull. — " He certainly did. And what is 
more, I am persuaded that in his most inmost mind he 
will not be otherwise than glad when the skeleton in 
his closet is revealed to the world, if thereby the abuses 
which lurk like vipers under the cloak of social con- 
servatism may be exposed and the causes removed. 
Mr. T * * * looks deeper into the soul of things than 
most men, and is braver than most." 

Keporter. — " How did your acquaintance with Mr. 
T * * * begin ? " 

Mrs. Woodhull. — " Upon the information received 
from Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Stanton I based what I said 
in the Weekly, and in the letters in the Times and 
World referring to the matter, I was nearly deter- 
mined — though still not quite so — that what I, equally 
with those who gave me the information, believed, but 
for w T holly other reasons, to be a most important social 
circumstance, should be exposed, my reasons being, as 




FRANCIS D. MOULTON, "THE MUTUAL FRIEND." 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 21 

I have explained to you, not those of the world, and I 
took that method to cause inquiry and create agitation 
regarding it. The day that the letter appeared in the 
World Mr. T * * * came to my office, No. 44 Broad 
street, and, showing me the letter, asked : ' Whom do 
you mean by that?" 'Mr. T * * *,' I said, 'I mean 
you and Mr. * * *.' I then told him what I knew, 
what I thought of it, and that I felt that I had a mission 
to bring it to the knowledge of the world, and that I had 
nearly determined to do so. I said to him much else on 
the subject ; and he said : ' Mrs. Woodhull, you are the 
first person I have ever met who has dared to, or else 
who could, tell me the truth.' He acknowledged that 
the facts, as I had heard them, were true, but declared 
that I did not yet know the extent of the depravitj* of 
that man — meaning Rev.- * * *. ' But,' said he, ' do 
not take any steps now. I have carried my heart as 
a stone in my breast for months, for the sake of * * *, 
my wife, who is broken-hearted as I am. I have had 
courage to endure rather than to add more to her 
weight of sorrow. For her sake I have allowed that 
rascal to go unscathed. I have curbed my feelings 
when every impulse urged me to throttle and ■ strangle 
him. Let me take you over to my wife, and you will 
find her in no condition to be dragged before the public ; 
and I know you will have compassion on her.' And I 
went and saw her, and I agreed with him on the pro- 
priety of delay." 

Reporter. — " Was it during this interview that Mr. 
T * * * explained to you all that you now know of 
the matter?" 

Mrs. Woodhull. — " Oh, no. His revelations were 
made subsequently at sundry times, and during months 



22 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

of friendly intercourse, as occasion brought the sub- 
ject up." 

Mrs. Woodhull then resumed, saying : " Mr. T * * * 
first began to have suspicions of Mr. * * * on his own 
return from a long lecturing tour through the West. 
He questioned his little daughter privately, in his 
study, regarding what had transpired in his absence. 
' The tale of iniquitous horror that was revealed to me 

was/ he said, ' enough 
^ to turn the heart of a 

stranger to stone, ' to 
i )P, MS^ sa y n °thing of a hus- 

i^K^ band and father/ It 

was not the fact of 
the intimacy alone, 
but, in addition to 
that, the terrible 
orgies — so he said — of 
which his house had 
been made the scene, 

W/WmWw anc * tne boldness with 

which matters had 

ytfl JlJffW been carried on in 

the presence of his 
mrs. euzajbeth cady stanton. children — J. hese 

things drove me 
mad/ said he, ' and I went to my wife and 
confronted her with the child and the damning 
tale she had told me. My wife did not deny 
the charge nor attempt any palliation. She was 
then enceinte ; and I felt sure that the child would not 
be my child. I stripped the wedding-ring from her 
finger. I tore the picture of Mr. * * * from my wall 




THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 23 

and stamped it in pieces. Indeed, I do not know what 
I did not do. I only look back to it as a time too 
horrible to retain any exact remembrance of it. She 
miscarried the child and it was buried. For two weeks, 
night and day, I might have been found walking to 
and from that grave, in a state bordering on distrac- 
tion. I could not realize the fact that I was what I 
was. I stamped the ring with which we had plighted 
our troth deep into the soil that covered the fruit of 
my wife's infidelity. I had friends, many and firm and 
good, but I could not go to them with this grief, and I 
suppose I should have remained silent through life had 
not an occasion arisen which demanded that I should 
seek counsel. Mr. * * * learned that I had discovered 
the fact, and what had transpired between my wife 
and myself, and when I was absent he called at my 
house and compelled or induced his victim to sign a 
statement he had prepared, declaring that so far as he, 
Mr. * * *, was concerned, there was no truth in my 
charges, and that there had never been any criminal 
intimacy between them. Upon learning this, as I did, 
I felt, of course, again outraged and could endure 
secrecy no longer. I had one friend who was like a 
brother, Mr. Frank Moulton. I went to him and 
stated the case fully. We were both members of * * * 
Church. My friend took a pistol, went to Mr. * * *, 
and demanded the letter of Mrs. T * * . * under pen- 
alty of instant death." 

Mrs. Woodhull here remarked that Mr. Moulton had 
himself also since described to her this interview, with 
all the piteous and abject beseeching of Mr. * * * not 
to be exposed to the public. 

" Mr. Moulton obtained the letter," said Mrs. W., 



21 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

" and told me that he had it in his safe, where he 
should keep it until required for further use. After 
this, Mr. T * * *'s house was no house for him, and 
he seldom slept or eat there, but frequented the house 
of his friend Moulton, who sympathized deeply with 
him. Mrs. T * * * was also absent days at a time, 
and, as Mr. T * * * informed me, seemed bent on 
destroying her life. I went, as I have said, to see her, 
and found her indeed a wretched wreck of a woman, 
whose troubles were greater than she could bear. She 
made no secret of the facts before me. Mr. * * *'s 
selfish, cowardly cruelty in endeavoring to shield him- 
self and create public opinion against Mr. T * * * 
added poignancy to her anxieties. She seemed in- 
different as to what should become of herself, but 
labored under fear that murder might be done on her 
account. 

" This was the condition of affairs at the time that 
Mr. T * * * came to me. I attempted to show him 
the true solution of the embroglio, and the folly that it 
was for a man like him, a representative man of the 
ideas of the future, to stand whining over inevitable 
events connected with this transition age and the social 
revolution of which we are in the midst. I told him 
that the fault and the wrong were neither in * * * nor 
in Mrs. T * * *, nor in himself; but that it was in the 
false social institutions under which we still live, while 
the more advanced men and women of the world have 
outgrown them in spirit; and that, practically, every- 
body is living a false life, by professing a conformity 
which they do not feel and do not live, and which they 
can not feel and live any more than the grown boy can 
re-enter the clothes of his early childhood. I recalled 




TILTON AND MOULTON CONSULTING WITH GENERAL BUTLER. 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 25 

to his attention splendid passages of his own rhetoric, 
in which he had unconsciously justified all the freedom 
that he was now condemning, when it came home to 
his own door, and endeavoring, in the spirit of a tyrant, 
to repress. 

•$» $$S JjS •{• *$• <fc •!» 

" Mr. T * * *'s conduct toward Mr. * * * and. toward 
his wife began from that time to be so magnanimous 
and grand — by which I mean simply just and right — 
so unlike that which most other men's would have 
been, that it stamped him, in my mind, as one of the 
noblest souls that lived, and one capable of playing a 
great role in the social revolution, which is now so 
rapidly progressing. 

" I never could, however, induce him to stand 
wholly, and unreservedly, and on principle, upon the 
free-love platform ; and I always, therefore, feared that 
he might for a time vacillate or go backward. But he 
opened his house to Mr. * * *, saying to him, in the 
presence of Mrs. T * * * : ' You love each other. Mr. 
* * *, this is a distressed woman ; if it be in your 
power to alleviate her condition and make her life less 
a burden than it now is, be yours the part to do it. 
You have nothing to fear from me.' From that time 
Mr. ***** wa s, so to speak, the slave of Mr. T * * * 
and Mr. Moulton. He consulted them in every matter 
of any importance. It was at this time that Mr. T * * * 
introduced Mr. * * * * to me, and I met him fre- 
quently both at Mr. T * *'s and at Mr. Moulton's. 
We discussed the social problem freely in all its varied 
bearings, and I found that Mr. * * * agreed with 
nearly all my views upon the question." 

Reporter. — "Do you mean to say that Mr. * * * 
disapproves of the present marriage system ? " 



26 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Mrs. Woodhull. — "I mean to say just this — that 
Mr. * * * * told me that marriage is the grave of love, 
and that he never married a couple that he did not feel 
condemned." 

Reporter. — " What excuse did Mr. * * * give for 
not avowing these sentiments publicly?" 

Mrs. Woodhull. — " Oh, the moral coward's inevita- 
ble excuse — that of inexpediency. He said he was 
twenty years ahead of his church ; that he preached 
the truth just as fast as he thought his people could 
bear it. I said to him, ' Then, Mr. * * *, you are de- 
frauding your people. You confess that you do not 
preach the truth as you know it, while they pay for 
and persuade themselves you are giving them your best 
thought.' He replied : ' I know that our whole social 
system is corrupt. I know that marriage, as it exists 
to-day, is the curse of society. We shall never have a 
better state until children are begotten and bred on the 
scientific plan. Stirpiculture is what we need.' ' Then,' 
said I, 4 Mr. * * *, why do you not go into your pulpit 
and preach that science ? ' He replied : ' If I were to 
do so, I should preach to empty seats. It would be the 
ruin of my church.' 'Then,' said I, 'you are as big a 
fraud as any time-serving preacher, and I now believe 
you are all frauds. I gave you credit for ignorant 
honesty, but I find you all alike — all trying to hide, or 
afraid to speak the truth. A sorry pass has this Chris- 
tian country come to, paying 40,000 ministers to lie to 
it from Sunday to Sunday, to hide from them the truth 
that has been given them to promulgate.' " 

Reporter. — " It seems you took a good deal of pains 
to draw Mr. * * * out." 

Mrs. Woodhull. — " I did. I thought him a man 



THE BKOOKLYN SCANDAL. 27 

who would dare a good deal for the truth, and that, 
having lived the life he had, and entertaining the 
private convictions he did, I could perhaps persuade 
him that it was his true policy to come out and openly 
avow his principles, and be a thorough, consistent radi- 
cal, and thus justify his life in some measure, if not 
wholly, to the public." 

Reporter. — w Was Mr. * * * aware that you knew 
of his relations to Mrs. T * * * ? " 

Mrs. Woodhull. — " Of course he was. It was be- 
cause that I knew of them that he first consented to 
meet me. He could never receive me until he knew 
that I was aware of the real character he wore under 
the mask of his reputation. Is it not remarkable how 
a little knowledge of this sort brings down the most 
top -lofty from the stilts on which they lift themselves 
above the common level ?" 

Reporter. — "Do you still regard Mr. * * * as a 
moral coward ? " 

Mrs. Woodhull. — " I have found him destitute of 
moral courage enough to meet this tremendous demand 
upon him. In minor things, I know that he has 
manifested courage. He could not be induced to take 
the bold step I demanded of him, simply for the sake 
of truth and righteousness. I did not entirely despair 
of him until about a year ago. I was then contem- 
plating my Stein way Hall speech on Social Freedom, 
and prepared it in the hope of being able to persuade 
Mr. * * * to preside for me, and thus make a way for 
himself into a consistent life on the radical platform. 
I made my speech as soft as I conscientiously could. I 
toned it down in order that it might not frighten him. 
When it was in type, I went to his study and gave 



28 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

him a copy and asked him to read it carefully and give 
me his candid opinion concerning it. Meantime I had 
told Mr. T * * * and Mr. Moulton that I was going to 
ask Mr. * * * to preside, and they agreed to press the 
matter with him. I explained to them that the only 
safety he had was in coming out as soon as possible an 
advocate of social freedom, and thus palliate, if he 
could not completely justify, his practices by founding 
them at least on principle. I told them that this in- 
troduction of me would bridge the way. Both the 
gentlemen agreed with me in this view, and I was for 
a time almost sure that my desire would be accom- 
plished. A few days before the lecture, I sent a note 
to Mr. * * * asking him to preside for me. This 
alarmed him. He went with it to Messrs. T * * * and 
Moulton, asking advice. They gave it in the affirma- 
tive, telling him they considered it eminently fitting 
that he should pursue the course indicated by me as 
his only safety, but it was not urged in such a way as 
to indicate that they had known the request was to 
have been made. Matters remained undecided until 
the day of the lecture, when I went over again to press 
Mr. * * * to a decision. I had then a long private in- 
terview with him, urging all the arguments I could to 
induce him to consent. He said he agreed perfectly 
with what I was to say, but that he could not stand on 
the platform of Stein way Hall and introduce me. He 
said, ' I should sink through the floor. I am a moral 
coward on this subject, and I know it, and I am not 
fit to stand by you, who go there to speak what you 
know to be the truth; I should stand there a living lie.' 
He got upon the sofa on his knees beside me, and tak- 
ing my face between his hands, while the tears streamed 




SCENE IN PLYMOUTH CHURCH — MOULTON CALLS PROF. RAYMOND A LIAR. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 29 

down his cheeks, begged me to let him off. Becoming 
thoroughly disgusted with what seemed to me pusilla- 
nimity, I left the room under the control of a feeling of 
contempt for the man, and reported to my friends what 
he had said. They then took me again with them and 
endeavored to persuade him. Mr. T * * * said to him : 
t Mr. * * *, some day you have got to fall ; go and in- 
troduce this woman and win the radicals of the coun- 
try, and it will break your fall.' ' Do you think,' said 
Mr. * * *, ' that this thing will come out to the world ?' 
Mr. T * * * replied : ' Nothing is more certain in earth 
or heaven, Mr. * * * ; and this may be your last chance 
to save yourself from complete ruin.' 

u ]yj; r * * * replied : ' I can never endure such a 
terror. Oh ! if it must come, let me know of it twenty- 
four hours in advance, that I may take my own life. 
I cannot, cannot face this thing ! ' 

" Thoroughly out of all patience, I turned on my 
heel and said : 6 Mr. * * *, if I am compelled to go 
upon that platform alone, I shall begin by telling the 
audience why I am alone, and why you are not with 
me,' and I again left the room. I afterward learned 
that Mr. * * * frightened at what I had said, prom- 
ised, before parting with Mr. T * * *, that he would 
preside if he could bring his courage up to the terrible 
ordeal. 

" It was four minutes of the time for me to go for- 
ward to the platform at Steinway Hall when Mr. 
T * * * and Mr. Moulton came into the ante-room 
asking for Mr. * * *. When I told them he had not 
come they expressed astonishment. I told them I 
should faithfully keep my word, let the consequences 
be what they might. At that moment word was sent 



30 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

me that there was an organized attempt to break up 
the meeting, and that threats were being made against 
my life if I dared to speak what it was understood I 
intended to speak. Mr. T * * * then insisted on going 
on the platform with me and presiding, to which I 
finally agreed, and that I should not at that time 
mention Mr. * * *." 

In spite of the asterisks with which Mrs. Woodhull 
had so plentifully sprinkled her statement, it was 
known that the persons embraced in her sweeping 
charges were the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and 
Theodore and Mrs. Tilton. Her charges created the 
most profound sensation, and drew from Mr. Beecher 
the following card, a few days later : 

To the Editor of the Brooklyn Eagle : 

Sir: — In a long and active life in Brooklyn, it has rarely 
happened that the Eagle and myself have been in accord on 
questions of common concern to our fellow-citizens. I am, 
for this reason, compelled to acknowledge the unsolicited con- 
fidence and regard of which the columns of the Eagle of late 
bear testimony. I have just returned to the city to learn that 
application has been made to Mrs. Victoria Woodhull for 
letters of mine, supposed to contain information respecting 
certain infamous stories against me. I have no objection to 
have the Eagle state, in any way it deems fit, that Mrs. Wood- 
hull, or any other person or persons, who may have letters of 
mine in their possession, have my cordial consent to publish 
them. In this connection, and at this time, I will only add 
that the stories and rumors which have, for some time past, 
been circulated about me are untrue, and I stamp them in 
general and in every particular as utterly untrue. 
Respectfully, 

Henry Ward Beecher. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 31 

Mr. Beecher's denial was accepted by the public as 
effectually disposing of Mrs. Woodhull's charges. In a 
matter of veracity between Mr. Beecher and Mrs. 
Woodhull public opinion naturally sustained the 
former. 

The matter would probably have died a natural 
death had Mr. Tilton been willing that it should. In 
December, 1872, he revived the public interest in the 
scandal, which was beginning to die out, by the publi- 
cation of the following letter : 



et, 1 
7,1872./ 



No. 174 Livingston Street, 
Brooklyn, December 2' 
My Complaining Friend: 

Thanks for your good letter of bad advice. You say, " How 
easy to give the lie to the wicked story and thus end it for- 
ever ! " But stop and consider. The story is a whole library 
of statements — a hundred or more — and it would be strange 
if some of them were not correct, though I doubt if any are. 
To give a general denial to such an encyclopaedia of assertions 
would be as vague and irrelevant as to take up the Police 
Gazette, with its twenty-four pages of illustrations, and say, 
" This is a lie." So extensive a libel requires, if answered at 
all, a special denial of its several parts ; and, furthermore, it 
requires, in this particular case, not only a denial of things 
misstated, but a truthful explanation of the things that remain 
unstated and in mystery. In other words, the false story, if 
met at all, should be confronted and confounded by the true 
one. Now, my friend, you urge me to speak ; but when the 
truth is a sword, God's mercy sometimes commands it sheathed. 
If you think I do not burn to defend my wife and little ones, 
you know not the fiery spirit within me. But my wife's heart 
is more a fountain of charity, and quenches all resentments. 
She says, " Let there be no suffering, save to ourselves alone," 
and forbids a vindication to the injury of others. From the 
beginning, she has stood with her hand on my lips, saying, 



32 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

" Hush ! " So, when you prompt ine to speak for her, you 
countervail her more Christian mandate of silence. Moreover, 
after all, the chief, victim of the public displeasure is myself 
alone, and, so long as this is happily the case, I shall try with 
patience to keep my answer within my own breast, lest it shoot 
forth like a thunderbolt through other hearts. 

Yours, truly, 

Theodore Tilton. 

This letter excited considerable comment at the 
time, and was generally regarded as a denial by Mr. 
Til ton of the rumors that had been in circulation for 
some time. 

II. 

PLYMOUTH CHURCH TAKES ACTION IN THE 

MATTER. 

It seems that Mr. Tilton, not content with the 
letter quoted above, repeated to various persons the 
substance of the charges which he subsequently em- 
bodied in his statement to the committee. These com- 
ing to the ears of Mr. Wm. F. West, a member of 
Plymouth Church, that gentleman informed Mr. Tilton 
of his intention to cite him before the church on the 
charge of circulating scandals against the pastor. Mr. 
Tilton stated to West that he had ceased his attend- 
ance upon the services of Plymouth Church for sev- 
eral years, and considered himself no longer a member 
of that body, and refused to regard himself as ame- 
nable to its discipline. This conversation occurred in 
August, 1873. On the 6th of October, at the close of 
the summer vacation, Mr. West formally charged 
Theodore Tilton, " a member of the church," with hav- 
ing circulated and promoted scandals derogatory to the 



Hi ■-- 




■BESIDEXCE OF ME. STORKS. THE PLACE OF MEETING OF THE INVESTIGATING C03QIITTEE. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 33 

Christian integrity of Mr. Beecher, and injurious to the 
reputation of the church. 

On the evening of Friday, October 31, 1873, after 
the usual prayer meeting, the official body of the church 
recommended that Mr. Tilton's name "be dropped from 
the role of membership of this church." Mr. Tilton, 
who had been informed ol the intention of the Society, 
was present on this occasion, and rose and addressed 
the meeting as follows : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : Twenty-three years ago I joined 
this church, and many of the most precious memories of my life 
cluster around these walls. Four years ago I ceased my mem- 
bership, nor have I ever been, from that time until to-night, 
once under this roof. Retiring from Plymouth Church, I did 
not ask for the erasure of my name from the roll, because the 
circumstances were such that I could not publicly state them 
without wounding the feelings of others beside myself. During 
these years of my absence a story has filled the land, covering 
it like a mist, that I have slandered the minister of this church. 

The speaker was interrupted by cries from two or 
three of " Order ! order ! " Mr. Shearman stated the 
point of order to be that there was no question of slan- 
der before them. The Moderator decided that Mr. 
Tilton was in order, and the latter resumed : 

Last summer Mr. Beecher published an explicit card exempt- 
ing me from this injustice. Notwithstanding this public # docu- 
ment in my behalf, a committee of this church, by its action, 
has given rise to injurious statements in the public press that 
my claim of non-membership is made by me in order to evade 
my just responsibility to the church as a member. I, therefore, 
come here to-night, not from any obligation of membership, 
since I am not a member, and not examined by any committee, 
for no committee has examined me, but of my free will, prompted 
by my self-respect, and as a ma ter vital to my life, and in 
3 



34 THE TEUE HISTOEY OF 

order to say in Mr. Beecher's presence, surrounded here by his 
friends, that if I have slandered him I am ready to answer for 
it to the man whom I have slandered. If, therefore, the min- 
ister of this church lias anything whereof to accuse me let him 
now speak and I shall answer, as God is my judge. 

At the close of Mr. Tilton's remarks, Mr. Beecher 
said : 

Mr. Tilton has been absent for four years. It has not been 
for the sake of excusing himself, or evading any process, or 
avoiding any proper responsibility. To my personal knowledge 
he was absent because he believed that his relation to the 
church had been separated by his own act. It cannot have 
been regular, but it was valid. The Roman Church holds that 
a child cannot die and go to heaven without it be baptized, ex- 
cept that it go to purgatory, and yet irregular baptism is al- 
lowed to be valid. Persons honestly believing themselves to 
be married are considered married, if they show good intention 
in the matter. For four years past Mr. Tilton has not been 
present at any of our meetings. You have known it and never 
protested against it in any meeting or social gathering. With 
the distinct knowledge that for nearly four years he had as- 
sumed the position of a man that had withdrawn from the 
church, you have permitted it to go on. It is substantially a 
sanction of his action ; and now to go back of your own action, 
for the sake of drawing into the church a troublesome case of 
discipline, is neither wise nor according to the spirit and ad- 
ministration of this church. 

I desire to say further that I don't believe that Mr. Tilton 
has desired in any way whatever to shirk his proper responsi- 
bility, or to avoid or evade any proper charge that might be 
made by the church. He asks if I have any charge to make 
against him. I have none. Whatever differences have been 
between us have been amicably adjusted, and, so far as I am 
concerned, buried. I have no charges. This whole matter has 
not been with my consent. This whole matter has been against 
my judgment.' I have said to the brethren who were interested 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 35 

in it, but who have acted sincerely and honestly, I believe, " You 
will only, to take up this matter, stop the proper business of 
the church, and reach a point at which you can do nothing. 
You will end just where you began, and I hold it not to be 
wise, not to be called for, certainly not to be, according to my 
judgment, 'the matter of the church.' That which I held 
from the beginning, I hold still/' 

After some further debate, the question was put and 
Mr. Tilton's name was dropped from the roll of Ply- 
mouth Church members by a vote of 210 yeas, and 13 
nays. 

III. 
THE CONGREGATIONAL COUNCIL. 

The action of Plymouth Church in dropping Mr. 
Tilton's name from its rolls was considered by two 
Congregationalist pastors of Brooklyn, Rev. R. S. Storrs, 
of the Church of the Pilgrims, and Rev. Wm. Ives 
Budington, of the Clinton Avenue Congregational 
Church, as violative of Congregational polity, and they 
addressed a remonstrance to Plymouth Church, stating 
their views, and insisting upon what they considered 
the proper course to be pursued in the premises. Ply- 
mouth Church declined to admit their interference, and 
asserted its right, as an independent body, to manage 
its affairs in its own way. The result of the contro- 
versy was the summoning of an Advisory Council of the 
Congregational Churches of the United States. Ply- 
mouth Church protested against this action as an un- 
warrantable interference with its affairs, and refused to 
take part in the Council. 

The Council met in Brooklyn on the 9tli of March, 



36 THE TKUE HISTOEY OF 

1874, and held daily sessions up to 12.30 on the morn- 
ing of Sunday, the 29th. It was presided over by Eev. 
Dr. Leonard Bacon, of Yale College. Exactly what 
this Council decided or accomplished has never yet 
been made plain to the outside public. By that great 
body of dispassionate critics, the whole matter was 
viewed as an attempt upon the part of the complaining 
clergymen to force the publication of the scandal con- 
cerning Mr. and Mrs. Til ton and Mr. Beecher. The 
New York Herald, of March 29, clearly summed up 
the public judgment in the following article : 

It would have been better for the general cause of religion, 
if the reverend gentlemen who composed the Brooklyn Council 
had remained at home. They have been made, perhaps un- 
willingly, parties to the most wretched farce ever enacted, 
and have become the laughing-stock of every man who believes 
in fair play. They have wasted the better part of a week in 
trying to mind Mr. Beecher's business and neglecting their 
own. The Council was convened, and the Council adjourned, 
and the only record left is that of an attempt to take revenge 
on a brother minister because the Almighty made him a genius. 

Well, it seems to be one of the inalienable rights and privi- 
leges of ecclesiastical human nature to call a council. Even 
ministers will quarrel, and when they do they are more per- 
sistent in their ill temper and more willing to sacrifice the man 
they have chosen for a victim than any other class of men in 
the community. The history of the Church shows that a 
religious quarrel is full of bad blood, and that clergymen, when 
they attack a man, are not satisfied until they tear him all to 
pieces. 

We think the gentlemen in whose fertile brains the Council 
originated have a genius for strategy. They have learned the 
lesson, that when a light weight contemplates flooring a heavily- 
timbered man, he should choose a time when circumstances 
seem to be against the latter, when he is a little off his guard, 



THE BBOOKLYK SCANDAL. 37 

and then strike boldly and heroically from the shoulder. If 
the heavy weight should happen to be too quick and should 
recover himself after the first blow, it is well to hold a corre- 
spondence on the subject ; in which case, like the squid, which 
exudes a black substance that stains the water all around, and 
so escapes, the assailant can sneak away under cover of the 
assertion that he is a Christian gentleman ; that no one has 
ever dared to call his fair name in question, while his brother, 
whom he hates with a velvety rhetoric and eloquence, is known 
to have pitch about him. We are a little afraid that Dr. Storrs 
loves Mr. Beecher too much — his affection is so ardent that he 
tries to love him to death. He pronounced a eulogy over him 
on the occasion of his twenty-fifth anniversary, and it may be 
that the effort exhausted all his kindly feeling, or, better still, 
it may be that, having got his hand in at that kind of elo- 
quence, he wants the Plymouth pastor to die a violent death, 
that he may have an opportunity of exhibiting the versatility 
of his rhetoric. 

The Brooklyn Council will long be remembered for several 
reasons. First, for the character of the gentlemen who com- 
posed it. It was as goodly a company as has been gathered 
together for many a year. Noted pastors of noted churches ; 
business men, whose Christian character is without spot or 
blemish ; presidents and officers of our -colleges, whose names 
have been familiar to us for half a generation ,• directors of the 
most important missionary enterprises of America-— all bowed 
their heads reverently to the opening prayer in Clinton Avenue 
Church. They were ready to consider, and able to settle the 
gravest questions of theology or polity. Better than that, they 
were men who have always believed in fair play; and they 
stood ready, as a grand jury, to hear any facts and to decide 
the law. Dr. Storrs opened the case by a splendid piece of 
rhetorical fireworks. He delivered a special plea, very forcible 
and very dishonest. The conspicuously absent Beecher had a 
stronger magnetic influence over that grave body of men than 
Storrs, whose words all had a sting in them, or Budington, 
who was evidently determined to be relentless. It was per- 



38 THE TKUE HISTOKY OF 

fectly evident from the beginning that these gentlemen intended 
to put their neighbor in an awkward position. They presented 
five propositions for consideration and decision. These prop- 
ositions were related to Congregationalism, they said, but 
every delegate knew that they related to Mr. Beecher only. 
They were worded very carefully, but each one of them, if 
reduced to plain English, would read thus : — Had Mr. Tilton 
any right to leave Plymouth Church without making public 
all he knew about the recent scandal ? The only object which 
Storrs and Budington had in calling the Council was simply 
to rake over the embers of that old and burnt-out gossip. 

This brings, us to the second reason why the Council will be 
long remembered, which is that, after it had been convened, 
its real business was to do an injury to a brother minister, in 
which it signally failed. The delegates were informed that 
they were to give advice. The question was at once asked, To 
whom ? Certainly not to Mr. Beecher ; for, in the first place, 
he had never asked for it, and, in the second place, he felt per- 
fectly competent to attend to his own affairs. The only parties 
in the quarrel who needed advice, then, were Drs. Budington 
and Storrs, and it was too late to say anything to them, for 
they had already acted in the case, prejudged Mr. Beecher and 
condemned him as a man unworthy of fellowship. To be sure, 
they would have been glad to shift the responsibility of their 
unwarrantable interference upon the Council, but they had men 
and not partisans to deal with, and they now stand, after the 
adjournment, alone in their unenviable position, the self-elected 
smelling committee of the Congregational body. 

The truth is, Mr. Beecher has excited the rancor of certain 
parties by his popularity and independence. He has some- 
thing inside of him which most ministers do not possess — the 
ability to make himself widely known and widely loved. 
There is a great desire on the part of some of the clergy to find 
out exactly what this something is by vivisection. The people 
know well enough that it is simply brains and heart ; but some 
ministers insist that no one can have more heart or brains than 
they, and have written a petition to this effect : — The under- 



THE BKOOKLYX SCAXDAL. 39 

signed, gasping for fame and unable to get it, respectfully 
petition you to lie down quietly and allow them to cut you in 
pieces. They hope to find some radical difficulty in your 
system. If it should happen that, after the process is over, 
they should be unable or unwilling to put you together again, 
you will at least have the satisfaction of dying for the benefit 
of others, and your detractors will enjoy the supreme happiness 
of knowing that you are out of the way. 

We submit that this is asking too much. The Council, 
which was evidently convened for the purpose of holding an 
inquest on the body of Beecher, or at least of compelling him 
to swallow such medicine as will soon render an inquest 
necessary, is another black spot on the page of religious his- 
tory. There are some envious souls so small that they cannot 
be happy until they see Beecher safely stowed away in Green- 
wood. May their disappointment last many a long year yet ! 

Why cannot clergymen be a little more friendly and a little 
less rancorous? Why cannot they wait patiently until the 
glorious work of Mr. Beecher is finished? They will then 
have an opportunity to carry him to Clinton avenue, pronounce 
their eulogies and squeeze their lachrymals for a few drops of 
hypocritical sorrow; or, if they like it better, they can take 
him to the ecclesiastical dissecting room, and give every gray 
head and every tyro the chance to put his knife into his dead 
body. 

Go home, gentlemen, and let your betters alone. Quarrel 
with each other, if you must, but do not wear your knuckles to 
the bone in vainly hitting a giant. Mr. Beecher has been 
doing a hard day's work while you have been drawing your 
salaries, and has earned the right not to be interfered with. He 
is perfectly competent to mind his own business, and all the 
people ask of you is to do the same, and to do it as well and as 
faithfully as he has done it. It is pretty poor work, that 
which you have been doing the last four days, and it seems to 
common folks that you have been acting the part of Paul Pry, 
with very little credit to yourselves. Gentlemen, find your 
gingham umbrellas and go home. 



40 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

The ultimate decision of the Council, as far as it can 
be understood, was that Plymouth Church was wrong; 
but, for the sake of harmony and peace, it counselled 
that there be no withdrawal of fellowship between the 
several churches. Plymouth Church, in the uncer- 
tainty of this decision, claimed that the victory rested 
with it, while the complaining parties claimed that 
it was a vindication of them and a warning to Ply- 
mouth Church not to repeat its offence. "So far as 
we have been able to make it out," said the Herald, 
"the clergy and lay delegates mean to say to Mr. 
Beecher by that verdict, i You have done nothing that 
requires censure and you must not do it again/ 
Whereupon Plymouth Church seizes upon the first 
clause and insists that the Council decided in its favor; 
and the congregations of the accusing churches seize 
upon the last clause and insist that the verdict is in 
their favor. This fact remains — that it took the wis- 
dom of the whole country four days to put the opinion 
of the majority into hieroglyphics. What is greatly 
needed just now is another Council to interpret the 
lan^uafre of this one and then in eood time we shall 
want still another to interpret the doings of that one, 
and so on indefinitely." 

IV. 
DE. BACON'S SPEECH. 

Though the Council was so enigmatical in its utter- 
ances, its Moderator, the Rev. Dr. Bacon, was much 
plainer and more to the point in his comments upon it. 
On the 2d of April, 1874, he delivered a lecture in 
New Haven, in which he explained the bearings of the 



THE BKOOKLYK SCANDAL. 41 

Council's acts upon Congregational polity. In closing 
his remarks, he made the following allusions to Mr. 
Beecher and Mr. Tilton : 

My theory of all these transactions and troubles proceeds on 
a belief in the highest Christian integrity of Mr. Beecher. I 
believe that the infamous women who have started this scandal 
have no basis for it. [Applause.] If it was their testimony 
alone, it would not be worth kicking a dog for. But I do not 
doubt that he has his infirmity, which is to let unprincipled 
men know too much of him. I do not object to his being a 
friend to publicans and sinners. Our Lord was. But the harlot 
who washed his feet with her tears and wiped them with her 
tresses was a repentant harlot; so one must hedge himself in a 
little. And you, as you go out to preach, be on your guard, 
lest in your anxiety to do good to the low you become liable to 
be charged with their sins. 

Another part of my theory is, that Mr. Beecher's magnan- 
imity is unspeakable. I never knew a man of a larger and 
more generous mind. One who was in relations to him the 
most intimate possible, said to me, "If I wanted to secure his 
highest love, I would go into a church-meeting and accuse him 
of crimes." This is his spirit. But I think he may carry it 
too far. A man whose life is a treasure to the Church uni- 
versal, to his country, to his age, has no right to subject the 
faith in it to such a strain. Some one has said that Plymouth 
Church's dealings with offenders is like Dogberry's. The com- 
parison was apt : " If any one will not stand, let him go and 
gather the guard and thank God that you are rid of such a 
knave." So of Lance, who went into the stocks and the pillory 
to save his dog from execution for stealing puddings and geese. 
I think he would have done better to let the dog die. And I 
think Mr. Beecher would have done better to have let ven- 
geance come on the heads of his slanderers. 

But he stands before his Master, and not before men. I 
hope ever to feel the fullest confidence in his character, and to 
see his influence enlarge and round out more and more. No 



42 THE TEUE HISTOEY OF 

one could give such a course of lectures as this last one of his 
here — which was the best — and show unconsciously such a 
reach of spiritual experience and growth, without being pure 
and noble. [Applause.] And in this feeling the Council 

shared. Dr. himself said to me, as we went out of the 

church after Dr. Storrs's address, in which he paid high tribute 
to Mr. Beecher's character and work, " That passage should be 
saved to be Mr. Beecher's funeral eulogy, for it could never be 
excelled." 

V. 
MR. TILTON'S REPLY TO DR. BACON. 

Dr. Bacon's speech was extensively copied by the 
press of all parts of the country, and drew forth in 
many instances editorial comments very unfavorable 
to Mr. Tilton, who, on the 21st of June, 1874, ad- 
dressed the following reply to Dr. Bacon : 

Sir: — I have carefully read your New Haven address con- 
cerning the late Council, and also your five essays on the same 
subject, just concluded in The Independent 

The numerous and extraordinary misrepresentations of my 
position which these writings of yours will perpetuate to my 
injury, if not corrected, compel me to lay before you the data 
for their correction : — misrepresentations which, on your part, 
are of course wholly unintentional, for you are incapable of 
doing any man a wilful wrong. 

In producing to your inspection some hitherto unpublished 
papers and documents in this case, I need first to state a few 
facts in chronological sequence, sufficient to explain the docu- 
mentary evidence which follows. 

I. After I had been for fifteen years a member of Plymouth 
Church, and had become meanwhile an intimate friend of the 
pastor, knowledge came to me in 1870 that he had committed 
against me an offence which I forbear to name or characterize. 
Prompted by my self-respect, I immediately and forever ceased 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 43 

my attendance on his ministry. I informed him of this deter- 
mination as early as January, 1871, in the presence of a mutual 
friend, Mr. Francis D. Moulton. 

The rules of Plymouth Church afforded me a choice between 
two methods of retirement : — one to ask for a formal letter of 
dismissal ; the other, to dismiss myself less formally by pro- 
longed absence. I chose the latter. In so doing, my chief 
desire was to avoid giving rise to curious inquiries into the 
reasons for my abandoning a church in which I had been 
brought up from boyhood; and therefore I did not invite 
attention to the subject by asking for a dismissory letter, but 
adopted the alternative of silently staying away — relying on 
the rule that a prolonged absence would finally secure to me a 
dismissal involving no publicity to the case. 

Several powerful reasons prompted me to the adoption of 
this alternative, among which were the following : — The pastor 
communicated to me in writing an apology signed by his name. 
He also appealed to me to protect him from bringing reproach 
to the cause of religion. He alleged that an exposure would 
forbid him to reascend his pulpit. These, and other similar 
reasons, I had no right or disposition to disregard ; and I acted 
upon them with a conscious desire to see Mr. Beecher protected 
rather than harmed. 

II. At length my absence from the church — an absence of 
which not three members of the congregation, beside the pastor, 
knew the cause — began to excite comment in private circles. 

Some of the members hinted that I had lapsed into a lament- 
able change of religious views — whereas my views continued 
to be the same as they had been for many years previous ; and 
though they had long before ceased to find their honest expres- 
sion in the formal creed which I had professed in my child- 
hood at the altar of Plymouth Church, yet my religious faith 
had not changed from that early original more than the views 
of some of the most honored members and officers of the same 
church had changed within the same time. 

Other persons insinuated that I had adopted un-Christian 
tenets concerning marriage and divorce: — whereas, touching 



44 THE TEUE HISTOKY OF 

marriage, I have always held, and still hold, with ever-increas- 
ing firmness, the one and only view common to all Christen- 
dom ; and touching divorce, the substance of what I held was, 
and still is, the needful abrogation of our unjust New York 
code, and the substitution of the more humane legislation of 
New England and the West. 

Other persons fancied that I had become a Spiritualist of an 
extravagant type : — whereas I have never yet seen my way 
clear to be a Spiritualist at all — certainly not to be so much a 
Spiritualist as some of the most prominent members of Ply- 
mouth Church are known to be. 

All these suppositions, and many others, but never the right 
one, became current in the church (and still are) to explain my 
suddenly sundered membership ; the true reason for which has 
been understood always by the pastor, but never by his flock. 

III. At length, after many calumnious whisperings, near 
and far (since evil tales magnify as they travel), a weekly paper 
in New York, in November, 1872, published a wicked and 
horrible scandal — a publication which some persons in the 
church ignorantly attributed in its origin and animus to me; 
whereas I had previously spent many months of constant and 
unremitting endeavor to suppress it: an endeavor in which, 
with an earnest motive, but a foolish judgment, I made many 
ill-directed sacrifices of my reputation, position, money, and 
fair prospects in life ; for all which losses of things precious, 
since mine alone was the folly, let mine alone be the blame. 

IY. In May, 1873, occurred the surreptitious publication of 
a tripartite agreement signed by H. C. Bowen, H. W. Beecher, 
and myself: — an agreement which, so far as I was concerned, 
had for its object to pledge me to silence against using or cir- 
culating charges which Mr. Bowen had made against Mr. 
Beecher. This covenant, as originally written, would have 
bound me never to speak, not only of Mr. Bowen's, but also of 
my own personal grievances against Mr. Beecher. I refused 
to sign the original paper. My position in the amended paper 
was this: Mr. Bowen had made grave charges against Mr. 
Beecher. These charges Mr. Bowen had been induced to 



THE BROOKLYN SCAKDAL. 45 

recall in writing. I cheerfully agreed never to circulate the 
charges which Mr. Bowen had recalled. 

Y. In August, 1873, Mr. William F. West, a member of 
Plymouth Church, hitherto a stranger to me, came to my resi- 
dence, accompanied (at his request) by my friend Mr. F. B. 
Carpenter, and told me that when the summer vacation was 
over he (Mr. W.) meant to cite me before the church on the 
charge of circulating scandals against the pastor ; declaring, in 
Mr. C.'s presence, that Mr. Beecher had acted as if the reported 
scandalous tales were true rather than false, and urging that I 
owed it to myself and the truth to go forward and become a 
willing witness in an investigation. I peremptorily declined 
to join Mr. West in his proposed investigation, and declared 
that as I had not been a member of Plymouth Church for 
several years, I could not be induced to return to that church 
for any purpose whatever, least of all for so distasteful a pur- 
pose as to participate in a scandal. Mr. West had meanwhile 
discovered that my name still remained on the church-roll; 
from which circumstance he determined to assume that I was 
still a member, and to force me to trial. Accordingly, a few 
weeks later, he brought forward charges which were nominally 
made against myself but really against the pastor: — charges 
which, if I may characterize them by the recently published 
language of the present Clerk of Plymouth Church, were "an 
indirect and insincere method of investigating one man under 
the false pretence of investigating another." 
^ Some leading members, including especially the pastor, de- 
sired my co-operation in defeating Mr. West, and I cheerfully 
gave it. To this end, I wrote— with their pre-knowledge and 
at their urgent desire— a letter declining to accept a copy of the 
charges addressed to me as a member, on the ground that I 
had, four years previously, ceased my connection with the 
church. ^ For this letter, I received, on the next day after 
sending it, the pastor's prompt and hearty thanks. An under- 
standing was then had between Mr. Beecher and myself, in an 
interview at the residence of Mr. Moulton, that Mr. West's 
indictment against me was to be disposed of in the following 



46 THE TKUE HISTOEY OF 

way, namely, by a simple resolution to the effect that, whereas 
I had, four years previously, terminated my membership ; and 
whereas by inadvertence my name still remained on the roll; 
therefore resolved that the roll be amended in accordance with 
the fact. This was to put Mr. West's case quietly out of court 
without bringing up the scandal. 

To my surprise and indignation, I learned on the morning of 
October 31, 1873, that the report which was to be presented at 
the church meeting to be held on that evening, would not be in 
the simple form already indicated, but would declare that whereas 
I had been charged with slandering flhe pastor ; and whereas I 
had been cited before the church to meet the charge; and whereas 
I had pleaded non-membership as an excuse for not appearing 
for trial ; therefore resolved that I should be dropped, etc. 

This gross imputation, thus foreshadowed to me, led me to 
appear in person at the church on that evening, there to await the 
reading of the forthcoming report. This report, when it came to 
be read, brought me the following novel intelligence, namely, 
"Whereas a copy of the charges was put into the hands of the 
said Til ton on the 17th of October, and a request made of him 
that he should answer the same by the 23d of October," etc. 

I do not know to this day whose hand it was that drew the 
above report, and therefore I am happily saved from an offen- 
sive personality when I say that the statement which I have 
here quoted is diametrically the opposite of the truth ; for 
instead of my having been requested to answer the charges, I 
had been requested not to answer them. 

After the public reading of the above report I arose in the 
meeting and said in Mr. Beecher's presence, that if I had slan- 
dered him I would answer for it to his face: — to which he 
replied in an equally public manner that he had no charge 
whatever to make against me. 

VI. Next, growing out of the church's singular proceedings 
in this case, came the Congregational Council of which you 
were Moderator. 

The above facts and events — which I have mentioned as 
briefly as possible, omitting their details — will serve as a sum*- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 47 

cient groundwork whereon to base the correction of the unjust 
and injurious statements which you have unwittingly given of 
my participation and responsibility in the case. With the Con- 
gregational theories and usages which you have so ably dis- 
cussed, I have no concern — you are probably right about them. 
But as to all the essential facts growing out of my relationship 
to Plymouth Church, you have been wholly misinformed — as 
you will see by the following proofs : 

I. You say that I retired from the church, giving no an- 
nouncement of my so doing to any proper officer; in other 
words, that I stole out secretly, letting no one in authority 
know of my purpose. Your language concerning me is as 
follows : 

" His position was that he had terminated his membership 
four years previously — not by requesting the church (as by its 
rules he might have done) to drop his name from its roll" etc. 

You then ask : 

"Is this the beautiful non-stringency of the covenant which 
connects the members of that church with the body, and with 
each other? What sort of a covenant is that which can be dis- 
solved at any moment, not merely by mutual consent, nor by 
either party giving notice to the other, but by a silent volition 
in the mind of either?" 

The above is a thorough misstatement of the manner in which 
I left Plymouth Church. 

On the very first occasion of my meeting the chief officer of 
the church, after my retirement from it, I gave notice to him 
of that retirement. At a later period, I repeated this notice to 
other officers of that body. In evidence of this fact, I adduce 
the following extract from a recent card by Mr. Thomas S. 
Shearman, Clerk of Plymouth Church, published in The Inde- 
pendent, June 18, 1874. He says: 

" Long before any charges were preferred against him, Mr. 
Tilton distinctly informed the Clerk of the church and various 
other officers and members (myself included) that he had with- 
drawn, and, that his name ought to be taken off the roll." 

II. You say that I have either " a malicious heart," or " a 
crazy brain." I know the fountain-head of this opinion. 



48 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

While the Council was in session in Brooklyn, the following 
startling paragraph appeared in the Brooklyn Union of Satur- 
day, March 28, 1874: 

MR. SHEARMAN ON THE SITUATION. 

"At the close of the services a Union reporter approached Mr. 
Beecher for the purpose of getting his views as to the Council, 
but he declined to be interviewed. Mr. Shearman, the Clerk 
of the church, however, was communicative. He said he had 
received no intimation as yet, what course the Council would 
pursue. In regard to the scandal on Mr. Beecher, he said, so 
far as Tilton was concerned, he (Tilton) was out of his mind, 
off his balance, and did not act reasonably. As for Mrs. Tilton, 
she had occasioned the whole trouble while in a half-crazed 
condition. She had mediumistic fits, and while under the 
strange power that possessed her, often spoke of the most in- 
credible things, declared things possible that were impossible, 
and among the rest had slandered Mr. Beecher. Mr. Tilton 
himself had acknowledged that all the other things she had 
told him in her mediumistic trance were false and impossible; 
then why, asked Mr. Shearman, should the scandal on Mr. 
Beecher be the only truth in her crazy words ? " 

My attention was not called to the above paragraph until 
aftei the Council had adjourned, and its members had gone to 
their homes. At first, I was not willing to believe that the 
Clerk of Plymouth Church — the same officer whose name had 
been officially signed to all the documents which the church 
had just been sending to the Council — could have been guilty 
of such an outrage against truth and decency as the above 
paragraph contained : — particularly against a lady whose devout 
religious faith and life are at the farthest possible remove from 
spiritualism or fanaticism of any kind. Accordingly, I pro- 
cured the following sworn statement by the reporter certifying 
to the accuracy of his report : 

Kings County, ss. 

Edwin F. Denyse, reporter of the Brooklyn Union, being 
duly sworn, deposed as follows: 

At the close of the Friday evening meeting in Plymouth 
Church, March 27, 1874, I, in company with another member 
of the press, requested Mr. Thomas G. Shearman, Clerk of the 
church, to communicate to us for publication any facts or com- 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 49 

ments or opinions which he might wish to make concerning the 
Congregational Council then in session : whereupon Mr. Shear- 
man stated in our hearing, and for the purpose for which we 
asked him to do so, the allegations contained in the previous 
paragraph. And I do solemnly swear that this paragraph is a 
correct and moderate report of Mr. Shearman's statements, both 
in letter and spirit. And I further testify that I solicited, as a 
reporter, the above statement from Mr. Shearman because he 
was the Clerk of the church, whose name had been affixed in 
that capacity to the documents which Plymouth Church had 
sent to the Council, and because an opinion from such a high 
officer would have an official authenticity and importance. 
Sworn to before me this 1st day of ] 

April, 1874, V Edwin $\ Denyse. 

. Frank Crooke, Justice of the Peace. J 

Shortly after the appearance of Mr. Shearman's reported 
interview in the Union, that gentleman sent to me through Mr. 
F. D. Moulton a letter, the substance of which was that he 
(Mr. S.) had referred in the above conversation not to me or 
my family, but to other persons. This letter I declined to 
receive, and returned it to the writer, with a demand upon him 
to retract his untrue and unjust statements. Furthermore, I 
required as a condition of my accepting from Mr. Shearman 
any apology at all, that this apology should be presented to me 
in writing in the presence of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 
This was promptly done at Mr. Moulton's house, in Mr. 
Beecher's presence. Mr. Shearman's apologetic letter was as 
follows : 

Brooklyn, April 2, 1874. 

Dear Sir : — Having seen a paragraph in the Brooklyn Union 
of Saturday last, containing a report of a statement alleged to 
have been made by me concerning your family and yourself, I 
desire to assure you that this report is seriously incorrect, and 
that I have never authorized such a statement. 

It is unnecessary to repeat here what I have actually said 
upon these subjects, because I am now satisfied that what I did 
say w r as erroneous, and that the rumors to which I gave some 
credit were without foundation. 

I deeply regret having been misled into an act of uninten- 
tional injustice, and am glad to take the earliest occasion to 
rectify it. I beg, therefore, to withdraw all that I said upon 
4 



50 



THE TRUE HISTORY OF 



the occasion referred to as incorrect (although then believed by 
me), and to repudiate entirely the statement imputed to me as 
untrue and unjust to all parties concerned. 

Yours obediently, T. G. Shearman. 

Theodore Tilton, Esq. 

The above-named calumny, which Mr. T. G. Shearman thus 
retracted, is but one of several similar falsehoods against my 
wife and myself which have been fostered by interested parties 
to explain the action of Plymouth Church : falsehoods which, 
in some instances, have been corrected in the same way, and 

which in others still await to 
be corrected either in this 
way or in a court of justice. 

III. You ask, " When did 
Mr. Til ton cease to be re- 
sponsible to the Plymouth 
Church ? n I answer, that I 
first ceased my responsibility 
to that church when I termi- 
nated my membership four 
years ago. I afterwards volun- 
tarily renewed my responsi- 
bility to the church on the 
evening of October 31, 1873, 
by appearing in person at one 
of its public meetings, and 
offering to answer then and 
there, in the pastor's presence, 
the charge that I had slan- 
dered him. Less than two 
months ago, I still furthei renewed my responsibility to Ply- 
mouth Church, as will appear by the following correspondence: 

Brooklyn, May 4, 1874. 

Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Pastor of Plymouth Church; 

Rev. S. B. Halliday, Associate Pastor; and Mr. 

Thomas G. Shearman, Clerk: 

Gentlemen: — I address, through you, to the church of 

which you are officers, the following statement, which you are 




FRANK B. CARPENTER. 



THE BROOKLYN" SCANDAL. 51 

at liberty to communicate to the church through the Examin- 
ing Committee, or in any other mode, private or public. 

The Rev. Leonard Bacon, D.D., LL.D., Moderator of the 
recent Congregational Council, has seen fit, since the adjourn- 
ment of that body, to proclaim, publish, and reiterate, with 
signal emphasis, and with the weight of something like official 
authority, a grave declaration which I here quote, namely : 

" It was for the Plymouth Church," he says, " to vindicate 
its pastor against a damaging imputation from one of its mem- 
bers. But with great alacrity — the pastor himself consenting — 

IT THREW AWAY THE OPPORTUNITY OF VINDICATION " . . . 

" That act," he continued, " in which the Plymouth Church 

THKEW AWAY THE OPPORTUNITY OF VINDICATING ITS PAS- 
TOR, was what gave occasion for remonstrances from neighbor- 
ing churches" . . . " There are many," he says also, "not 
only in Brooklyn, but elsewhere, who felt that the church had 
not fairly met the question, and by evading the issue had 

THROWN AWAY THE OPPORTUNITY OF VINDICATING ITS PAS- 
TOR." 

The Moderator's declaration is thus made three times over 
that the Plymouth Church, in dealing with my case, threw 

AWAY ITS OPPORTUNITY OF VINDICATING THE PASTOR. 

This declaration so emphatically repeated by the chief 
mouth-piece of the Council, and put forth by him apparently 
as an exposition of the Council's views, compels me, as the 
third party to the controversy, to choose between two alterna- 
tives. 

One of these is to remain contentedly in the dishonorable 
position of a man who denies to his former pastor an opportu- 
nity for the vindication of that pastor's character : — an offence 
the more heinous because an unsullied character and reputation 
are requisites to his sacred office. 

The other alternative is for me to restore to his church their 
lost opportunity for his vindication by presenting myself volun- 
tarily for the same trial to which the church would have power 
to summon me, if I were a member: — a suggestion which 
(judging from my past experience) will subject me afresh to 
the unjust imputation of reviving a scandal, for the suppression 
of which I have made more sacrifices than all other persons. 

Between these two alternatives — which are all that the 
Moderator leaves to me — and which are both equally repug- 
nant to my feelings — duty requires me to choose the second. 

I therefore give you notice that if the pastor, or the Examin- 
ing Committee, or the church as a body, desire to repossess 



52 THE TKUE HISTOKY OF 

the opportunity which the Moderator laments that you have 
thrown away, I hereby restore to you this lost opportunity as 
freely as if you had never parted with it. 

I authorize you (if such be your pleasure) to cite me at any 
time within the next thirty days to appear at the bar of Ply- 
mouth Church for trial on the charge heretofore made against 
me, namely, that of " circulating and promoting scandals de- 
rogatory to the Christian integrity of the pastor, and injurious 
to the reputation of the church." 

My only stipulation concerning the trial is, that it shall not 
be held with closed doors, nor in the absence of the pastor. 

I regret keenly that the Moderator has imposed on me the 
necessity for making this communication, for nothing but neces- 
sity would extort it. 

The practical good which I seek to achieve by this proposi- 
tion is that, whether accepted or declined, it will in either case 
effectually put an end forever to the Moderator's grave charge 
that Plymouth Church has been deprived through me of an 
opportunity to vindicate its pastor, or that its pastor has been 
by any act of mine deprived of an opportunity to vindicate 
himself. Truly yours, 

Theodore Tilton. 

To the above communication I received the following reply 
from the Clerk of the church : 

Brooklyn, May 18, 1874. 

Dear Sir : — Your note of the 4th inst., enclosing a letter 
addressed to Mr. Beecher, Mr. Halliday, and myself, was duly 
received. 

This letter has been read by Mr. Halliday, with whose con- 
currence it has been submitted to the Examining Committee ; 
and we all deem its contents to present a question which should 
be decided by that committee, and which should not be sub- 
mitted to the pastor of the church, to whom, therefore, the 
letter has not been shown, though he has been advised of its 
substance. 

Having consulted the members of the committee, I am in- 
formed by them that they see no reason for accepting your 
proposition, or even laying it before the church. 

Whatever view may be taken of the case by others, the 
Examining Committee and the church have seen no necessity 
for vindicating any member of the church from charges which 
no one has made, and the church has never in the twenty-seven 
years of its history adopted such a course. No one can, there- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 53 

fore, hold you responsible for the loss of an opportunity to the 
church to do that which it never yet has done, and probably 
never will do. 

We do not understand your letter as implying that you have 
any charges to make, but to the contrary. If the committee 
had so understood it, they would have readily entertained and 
fully investigated them. 

It is proper to add that your name was dropped from the 
roll, not simply because of the statements made by you after 
charges had been preferred against you, but because months, 
if not years, before any charges were made you distinctly stated 
to various officers and members of the church that you had per- 
manently abandoned your connection with it, thus bringing your- 
self expressly within the terms of our rule upon this subject. 

Yours, truly, 

Mr. Theodore Tilton. Thomas G. Shearman. 

* 

As the above communication by Mr. Shearman seemed to 
bear no official but only a private signature, I addressed to 
him the following note : 

174 Livingston Street, \ 
Brooklyn, May 23, 1874. j 
Mr. Thomas G. Shearman, Clerk of Plymouth Church : 

Sir : — My recent communication addressed to the Pastor, the 
Associate Pastor, and the Clerk of Plymouth Church is ac- 
knowledged by you in a note which you seem to have signed 
merely as a private individual, and not as an officer of the 
church. 

I call your attention to the fact that I did not address you in 

your private capacity but solely as Clerk of Plymouth Church. 

I therefore respectfully request to be informed by you, 

definitely and in writing, whether or not I am at liberty to 

regard your letter as an official reply to mine. 

Yours, truly, 

Theodore Tilton. 
Mr. Shearman's reply was as follows : 

81 Hicks Street, \ 
Brooklyn, May 29, 1874. J 
Dear Sir : — In reply to your inquiry whether my letter of 
18th inst. was an official answer to yours of the 4th inst., I 
beg to say that I did not feel at liberty, without the express 
authority of the church itself, to sign that letter as its Clerk. 



54 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

In so far as the letter stated that your proposition of May 4 
was declined, it was official ; since as Clerk of the church I 
declined then, and decline now, to lay the proposal before the 
church itself, holding myself responsible to the church for so 
doing. 

The remainder of the letter of 18th inst. must be regarded 
as my individual statement of what I believe to be the unani- 
mous opinion of the officers of the church. 

Your obedient servant, 

Thomas G. Shearman. 
Me. Theodore Tilton. 

It will thus be seen that Mr. Shearman, in answer to my 
inquiry, characterizes his previous letter to me as partly official 
and partly unofficial — though how he could originally have 
expected me to draw the dividing line between its two parts 
without this subsequent explanation, I am at a loss to under- 
stand. But the official portion of his letter (now that it has 
been pointed out tc me) is sufficient to answer your query. 
"When did Mr. Tilton cease to be responsible to the Ply- 
mouth Church?" I respectfully submit that, setting aside all 
previous cavils and technicalities concerning the church-roll, I 
may be fairly said to have ceased my responsibility to Ply- 
mouth Church when the Clerk of that church officially informed 
me that my voluntary offer to return and be tried was officially 
declined. 

IV. In your five essays you were led, through ignorance of 
the facts, to make several other erroneous and injurious state- 
ments concerning my case ; but the corrections and explanations 
which I have already given will of themselves correct the 
others. 

It now remains for me to give you some reasons why I have 
been prompted, after years of reticence, to lay before you the 
grave matters contained in this communication. Nothing could 
induce me to make my present use of the foregoing facts except 
the conviction which the events of the last year, and particu- 
larly of the last half year, have forced upon my mind that 
Mr. Beecher, or his legal and other agents acting in his interest 
and by his consent, have shown themselves willing to sacrifice 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 5- 

my good name for the maintenance of his. I have come slowl y 
to this judgment — more slowly than my personal friends have 
done ; but that I am not mistaken in it, you shall see by a few 
illustrative instances : 

I. 1 have already shown you how the church, at a public 
meeting, on Friday evening, October 31, 1873, by an official 
document which was published the next morning in every lead- 
ing journal in Xew York, gave the public falsely to understand 
that I had been cited to answer charges, when I had really 
been requested not to answer them : — a piece of ecclesiastical 
misrepresentation which was the more grievous to me because 
it was subsequently accepted by the Council as authentic, and 
because it is still widely believed by the public. 

II. Mr. Beecher's journal, The Christian Union, published 
this official falsehood to a wide circle of readers, and took no 
notice of the correction which I addressed at the time in a 
brief note to the Couucil. Let me ask you to weigh the 
peculiar gravity of this omission by that journal. My case, as 
presented to the Council by the two protesting churches, was 
based by them, not on any private or accurate knowledge of 
the facts, but solely on the published misstatements of those facts 
by Plymouth Church. I was described by the two churches 
to the Council as follows : 

" Specific charges of grossly un-Christian conduct are pre- 
sented against him by a brother in the church, to which charges 
he declines to answer" etc. 

You will remember that I promptly addressed to you a reply 
to the above, in which I used the following explicit words : 

" Gentlemen of the Council, every man among you knows 
that I did not decline to answer." 

You, as Moderator of the Council, courteously gave me the 
ecclesiastical reasons why my letters could not be officially laid 
before that body; but can you give me any honorable reason 
why my defence should not have been published in The Chris- 
tian Union? If every other American journal should be de- 
stroyed, and only the files of The Christian Union should 



56 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

remain, that journal's report of my case would represent me as 
a culprit, first, who had slandered a clergyman ; next, who had 
been summoned before the church to answer for this calumnia- 
tion ; next, who had evaded this summons by resorting to the 
safe shelter of non-membership; and last, who on account of 
this moral poltroonery had been dropped from the roll. Such 
is the record which Mr. Beecher's journal contains of my case, 
up to date. 

III. During the Council, and when there seemed a proba- 
bility that Plymouth Church would receive condemnation and 
be disfellowshipped by the neighboring churches, Mr. Beecher 
inspired a message from his church to the Council, closing with 
these words : 

" We hold that it is our right, and may be our duty, to 
avoid the evils incident to a public explanation or a public 
trial; and that such an exercise of our discretion furnishes us 
no good ground for the interference of other churches, provided 
ice neither retain within our fellowship), nor dismiss by letter, as 
in regular standing, persons who bring open dishonor upon the 
Christian name." 

This adroit insinuation against me is what you, as Moderator 
of the Council, know to have been the turning point in the 
fortunes of Plymouth Church before that tribunal. The Coun- 
cil's verdict borrows almost these identical words. It says, 
" The accused person has not been retained in the church, nor 
commended to any other church." You, too, quote these words 
— borrowed thus doubly from the church's plea and from the 
Council's verdict — and you then logically say, " Therefore the 
abnormal method in which the charges against him [me] were 
disposed of was overlooked." 

In other words, the Council, on reading the above excusatory 
petition sent up to it by Plymouth Church, found in it the one 
and only ground for retaining that church within the Congre- 
gational fellowship; and this one and only ground was because 
Mr. Beecher's final appeal to the Council represented me as a 
person who liad neither been retained in his church, nor been 
recommended to any other, but who was dropped from the roll 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 57 

for bringing " dishonor on the Christian name." This docu- 
ment — constituting Plymouth Church's ungenerous defence 
before the Council — was accepted by you in good faith, and has 
since led you to point against me the following cruel words : 

"The Plymouth Church," you say, "made it known that 
they were no longer responsible for the dishonor which he has 
brought or may bring on the name of Christ. They dropped 
him from the roll of the church. In one word they excom- 
municated him, for such a dropping from the roll was ex- 
communication from the church." 

You never could have uttered the preceding injurious words 
against me had not Mr. Beecher and his church -agents given 
you the materials for so doing by ingeniously putting before 
the Council a document which you, as Moderator, interpreted 
as being only another way of Plymouth Church's saying that 
I had brought dishonor on the Christian name and had there- 
fore been excommunicated. 

Do not misunderstand me. I will not say that, in my unsuc- 
cessful management of this unhappy scandal, I have brought no 
"dishonor on the Christian name :" the one name which, of all 
others, I most seek to honor. With infinite sorrow I look back 
through the last few years, and see instances in which, by the 
fatality of my false position, I have brought peculiar " dis- 
honor on the Christian name:" — all which I freely acknowl- 
edge, and hope yet to repair. But I solemnly aver — and no 
man shall gainsay me — that the reason why Plymouth Church 
avoided an investigation into the scandal with which I was 
charged, was not because I, but another man, had " brought 
dishonor on the 'Christian name.'" And yet this other per- 
son, a clergyman, permitted his cnurch to brand me before the 
Council with an accusation which, had I been in his place and 
he in mine, I would have voluntarily borne for myself instead 
of casting on another. 

IV. I will adduce a further instance by a quotation from a 
letter which I had occasion to address to Mr. Beecher, dated 
May 1,1874: 



58 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Henry Ward Beecher: 

Sir : — Mr. F. B. Carpenter mentions to me your saying to 
him that under certain conditions, involving certain disavowals 
by me, a sum of money would or could be raised to send me, 
with my family, to Europe for a term of years. 

The occasion compels me to state explicitly that so long as 
life and self-respect continue to exist together in my breast, I 
shall be debarred from receiving, either directly or indirectly, 
any pecuniary or other favor at your hands. 

The reason for this feeling on my part you know so well, 
that I will spare you the statement of it. 

Yours, truly, 

Theodore Tilton. 

V. Take another instance. You will perceive that in Mr. 
Shearman's letter, given above — the letter officially declining 
my offer to return to the church, to be tried — he says, under 
date, May 18, 1874: 

" Your note of the 4th inst., enclosing a lettes addressed to 
Mr. Beecher, Mr. Halliday and myself, was duly received. This 
letter has been read by Mr. Halliday with whose concurrence it 
has been submitted to the Examining CommitteeP 

And yet, a month and a half after Mr. Halliday saw this let- 
ter, and a month after Mr. Shearman had officially replied to it, 
the Brooklyn Union of June 19 contained the following sin- 
gular statement, by a reporter who visited Mr. Halliday : 

" In an extract," says the Union, " from a letter written to 
the Chicago Tribune, it is stated that Mr. Tilton had addressed 
a note to the ' Trustees of Plymouth Church/ The Tribune's 
correspondent declares that Mr. Tilton ' not only expresses his 
willingness but desire to answer any summons as a witness dur- 
ing the next thirty days.' A Union reporter (Mr. Tilton not 
being accessible) called on Rev. Mr. Halliday to-day, and, upon 
presenting the extract to him, was assured that the person who 
corresponded with the Chicago Tribune must have been misin- 
formed. The very fact of his stating that the letter was ad- 
dressed ' to the Trustees of Plymouth Church/ he said, ' was an 
absurdity/ The trustees only attended to temporalities of the 
church. If Mr. Tilton had written such a letter, of which, how- 
ever, he had no knowledge, it would have been either addressed to 
the church, to its pastor, or to some member or members. At the 
last Friday evening meeting no such letter had been presented 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 59 

for consideration, and he was certain that none had since been 
received, although he must say he had been absent in Massa- 
chusetts about a week. He added that he had reason for believ- 
ing that Mr. Tilton felt a little sore about what Rev. Mr. Bacon 
had said of him. But whether he would take to writing letters 
about it he couldnH say." 

And yet Mr. Halliday, according to Mr. Shearman's testi- 
mony above given, had read my letter forty days before thus 
denying that he had ever seen or heard of it. 

A similar statement to the above appeared in the Brooklyn 
Eagle, at the same time (June 20), as follows : 

" The trustees of Plymouth Church deny that Theodore Tilton 
has addressed a letter to them offering himself as a witness, and 
expressing a desire to answer certain charges against Mr. 
Beecher, during the next thirty days. They say that the whole 
story is false from beginning to end." 

The above are recent specimens — not solitary or unique — of 
the manner in which Mr. Beecher's agents have not hesitated 
to use the Brooklyn press, on numerous occasions, to misrepre- 
sent and pervert my case to the community in which I reside, 
and to the public at large. 

VI. Furthermore, I regret to point you to the evidence that 
Plymouth Church, or rather the attorney who now acts as its 
Clerk, is attempting to make up a false but plausible record 
concerning this case, for the purpose of appealing to it in future 
to my disadvantage. It was to this end that Mr. Shearman in- 
geniously incorporated in his letter to me, dated May 18, 1874, 
the following words : 

" We do not understand your letter as implying that you have 
any charges to make, but the contrary. If the committee had 
so understood it, they would have readily entertained and fully 
investigated them" 

The manifest object of the above record is to enable the 
church to say, a year or five years hence, that if I ever had any 
charges to make against Mr. Beecher, the church had long ago 
given me an abundant opportunity to make them. Mr. Shear- 
man is still more bold in his communication to The Independent, 
dated June 18, 1874. He therein says of the church : 



GO THE TKUE HISTOKY OF 

" Its officers have, in the proper way, without parade, given 
every facility for investigation that could reasonably be desired, 
even by the most captious critics;" 

The above statement by Mr. Shearman is made in a letter 
which was put forth by him ostensibly in my interest, and 
which I am already accused of having inspired. This leads me 
to disavow the declaration which I have last quoted as insincere 
and at variance with the truth. 

VII. Not to multiply instances needlessly, there is one other 
to which my self-respect compels me to allude with painful ex- 
plicitness. In your New Haven speech you characterized Mr. 
Beecher as the most magnanimous of men, and in the context 
referred to me as a knave and dog. You left the public to in- 
fer that I had become in some despicable way the creature of 
Mr. Beecher's magnanimity. Early in April last I called Mr. 
Beecher's attention to the oifensiveness and injuriousness of your 
statement, and informed him that I should insist on its correc- 
tion either by him or me. In order to provide him with an 
easy way to correct it, involving no humiliation to his feelings, 
I addressed to you the following letter : 

Brooklyn, April 3, 1874. 
Rev. Leonard Bacon, D.D.: 

My Dear Sir : — I have just been reading the Tribune's re- 
port of your Yale speech on the Brooklyn Council, in which 
occurs the following paragraph : 

" Another part of my theory is that Mr. Beecher's magna- 
nimity is unspeakable. I never knew a man of a larger and 
more generous mind. One who was in relations to him the 
most intimate possible said to me, ' If I wanted to secure his 
highest love, I would go into a church meeting and accuse him 
of crimes. This is his spirit. But I think he may carry it too 
far. A man whose life is a treasure to the Church universal, 
to his country, to his age, has no right to subject the faith in it 
to such a strain. Some one has said that Plymouth Church's 
dealing with offenders is like Dogberry's. The comparison is 
apt : ' If any one will not stand, let him go, and gather the 
guard, and thank God you are rid of such a knave.' So of 
Lance, who went into the stocks and the pillory to save his dog 
from execution for stealing puddings and geese. I think he 



THE BEOOKLYN SCANDAL. 61 

would have done better to let the dog die. And I think Mr. 
Beecher would have done better to have let vengeance come on 
the heads of his slanderers." . . . 

Setting aside the satire and mirth, if there be any criticism 
directed toward me in these words in sobriety and earnestness, 
then I beg you to do me the following act of justice : 

Please forward to Mr. Beecher the letter I am now writing, 
and ask him to inform you, on his word of honor, whether I 
have been his slanderer — whether I have spoken against him 
falsely — whether I have evaded my just responsibility to Ply- 
mouth Church — whether I have treated him other than with 
the highest possible fairness— and whether he has not acknowl- 
edged to me, in large and ample terms, that my course towards 
him in tin's sorrowful business has been marked by the magna- 
nimity which you apparently intimate has characterized his to- 
wards me. 

If you write to Mr. Beecher as I have indicated, I will 
thank you for a line as the words or substance of his reply. 
With great respect I am truly yours, 

Theodore Tilton. 

In reply to the above letter you sent me the following : 

New Haven, April 10, 1874. 
Theodore Tilton, Esq.: 

Dear Sir : — Not being in Mr. Beech er's confidence, I have 
doubted what I ought to do with your letter written a week 
ago. I was not — and am not — willing to demand of him that 
he shall admit me to his confidence in a matter on which he 
chooses to be reticent. But as the letter seems to have been 
written for him quite as much as for me, I have now sent it to 
him without asking or expecting any reply. . . . 

With the best wishes for your welfare, I am yours truly, 

Leonard Bacon. 

It is now between two and three months since I received 
from you the foregoing letter ; and as I have not heard that 
Mr. Beecher has made a reply, either to you or to me, I am at 
last forced to the disagreeable necessity of borrowing a reply in 
his own words, as follows : 

Brooklyn, Jan. 1, 1871. 
I ask Theodore Tilton's forgiveness, and humble myself be- 
fore him as I do before my God. He would have been a bet- 
ter man in my circumstances than I have been. I can ask 



62 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

nothing except that he will remember all the other breasts that 
would ache. I will not plead for myself. I even wish that I 
were dead. . . . 

H. W. Beecher. 

The above brief extract from Mr. Beecher's own testimony 
will be sufficient, without adducing the remainder of the docu- 
ment, to show that I have just ground to resist the imputation 
that I am the creature of his magnanimity. 

In conclusion, the common impression that I have circulated 
and promoted scandals against Mr. Beecher is not true. I 
doubt if any other man in Brooklyn, during the whole extent 
of the last four years, has spoken to so few persons on this sub- 
ject as I have done. A mere handful of my intimate friends 
— who had a right to understand the case — are the only persons 
to whom I have ever communicated the facts. To all other 
persons I have been dumb — resisting all questions, and refusing 
all explanations. 

If the public have heretofore considered my silence as inex- 
plicable, let my sufficient motive be now seen in the just for- 
bearance which I felt morally bound to show to a man who had 
sent me a written and absolute apology. 

But my duty to continue this forbearance ceased when the 
spirit of that apology was violated to my injury by its author 
or his agents. These violations have been multitudinous al- 
ready, and they threaten to multiply in the future — forcing me 
to protect myself against them in advance ; — particularly against 
the cunning devices of the Clerk of the church, who, acting as 
an attorney, appears to be conducting this business against me 
as if it were a case at law. 

Had the fair spirit which I had a right to expect from Ply- 
mouth Church — at least for its pastor's sake — been shown 
toward me, I would have continued to rest in silence on Mr. 
Beecher's apology, and never, during the remainder of my life, 
would I have permitted any public word of mine to allude to 
the offence or the offender. 

But the injurious measures which the author of this apology 
has since permitted his church to take against me without protest 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 63 

on his part — measures leading to the misrepresentation of my case 
and character by the church to the Council, and by the Council 
to the general public — involving gross injuries to me, which 
have been greatly aggravated by your writings : — all these in- 
dictments, conjoining to one end, have put me before my coun- 
trymen in the character of a base and bad man — a character 
which, I trust, is foreign to my nature and life. Under the 
accumulating weight of this odium — unjustly bestowed upon 
me — neither patience nor charity can demand that I keep 
silent. 

In your capacity as ex -Moderator of the Council, and as its 
chief expositor, you have labelled the theme of your animad- 
versions, " the celebrated case of Theodore Tilton." You have 
declared that " the transaction, with all its consequences, belongs 
to history, and is in every way a legitimate subject of public 
criticism." If, therefore, your estimate of the historic import- 
ance of the case is true (though I hope it is not), I now finally 
appeal to you as its chief historian not to represent me as play- 
ing an unmanly or dishonorable part in a case in which, so far 
as I can yet see, I have failed in no duty save to myself. 

Truly yours, 

Theodore Tilton. 

VI. 

MR. BEECHER DEMANDS AN INVESTIGATION. 

The publication of this letter of Mr. Tilton brought 
matters to a crisis. Up to this time Mr. Beecher, for 
reasons which will appear at a further stage of this 
narrative, and which all good men will appreciate and 
respect, whether they indorse them or not, had ex- 
erted himself to prevent this unhappy scandal from 
coining to a public trial. Mr. Tilton had by his letter 
to Dr. Bacon made it necessary that, in justice to all 
parties, the truth should be known ; and Mr. Beecher, 



64 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

conscious of Lis own rectitude and confident of the 
result, had but one course open to him — to demand the 
fullest and most searching investigation into the facts 
of the case. He accordingly addressed the following 
letter to a number of the most prominent members of 
his congregation, who are named in this document, 
asking them to investigate the charges made against 
him by Theodore Tilton : 

Brooklyn, June 27, 1874. 

Gentlemen : — In the present state of the public feeling, I 
owe it to my friends, and to the church and the Society over 
which I am pastor, to have some proper investigation made of 
the rumors, insinuations, or charges made respecting my conduct, 
as compromised by the late publications made by Mr. Tilton. 
I have tli ought that both the church and the Society should be 
represented, and I take the liberty of asking the following gen- 
tlemen to serve in this inquiry, and to do that which truth and 
justice may require. I beg that each of the gentlemen named 
will consider this as if it had been separately and personally 
sent to him, namely : 

From the Church — Henry W. Sage, Augustus Storrs, Henry 
M. Cleveland. 

From the Society — Horace B. Claflin, John Winslow, S. V. 
White. 

I desire you, when you have satisfied yourselves by an im- 
partial and thorough examination of all sources of evidence, to 
communicate to the Examination Committee, or to the church, 
such action as then may seem to you right and wise. 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

These gentlemen having signified their willingness 
to undertake the task confided to them, Mr. Beecher 
notified the Examining Committee of Plymouth Church 
of his action, and requested their sanction of it in the 
following letter: 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 65 

July 6, 1874. 
Dear Brethren : — I enclose to you a letter in which I have 
requested three gentlemen from the church, and three from the 
Society of Plymouth Church (gentlemen of unimpeachable 
repute, and who have not been involved in anv of the trials 
through which we have passed during the year), to make a 
thorough and impartial examination of all charges or insinua- 
tions against my good name, and to report the same to you ; 
and I now respectfully request that you will give to this com- 
mittee the authority to act in your behalf also. It seemed wise 
to me that the request should proceed from me, and without 
your foregoing knowledge, and that you should give to it au- 
thority to act in your behalf in so far as a thorough investiga- 
tion of the facts should be concerned. 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

The desired authority was given to the above-named 
Committee, which at once entered upon its labors. 

Here, upon the threshold of the investigation, let us 
pause and glance at the actors in this unhappy affair — 
the accused, the accuser, and the alleged victim. 



VII. 

HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Dr. Lyman Beecher had ten children. The eighth 
of these was the subject of this memoir, and by far the 
most brilliant member of the family. Henry Ward 
Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on the 
24th of June, 1813. His father was regarded as one 
of the most intellectual men of his day, and one of the 
ablest champions of orthodox Christianity in New Eng- 
land. His children have all enjoyed the good fortune 
of becoming noted for their intellectual ability. 



66 



THE TRUE HISTORY OF 




-i; 1 * 



HENRY WARD BEECHER. 



In spite of his acknowledged genius and eloquence, 
and the extensive reputation he enjoyed, Dr. Beecher's 
salary never exceeded the beggarly sum of eight hun- 
dred dollars, and on this pittance he was obliged to 
rear his large family. His wife, the mother of Henry, 
died when the lad was but three years old, and the 
little fellow, thus deprived of a mother's society, was 
left very much to himself. His father s time was con- 
stantly engaged in his theological labors, and he had 
little opportunity to cultivate the society of his chil- 
dren, while thoroughly devoted to them. His atten- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 67 

tions to Henry Ward seem to have been confined to 
requiring him to swallow a weekly dose of Catechism 
and the peculiarly gloomy theology of which he was 
the exponent, and to " set an example to the village," 
the common lot of most ministers' children. No won- 
der the man looks back upon the religious training of 
his childhood as gloomy and repelling. 

Mrs. Stowe, his sister, thus speaks of his childhood: 
" The childhood of Henry Ward was unmarked by the 
possession of a single child's toy as a gift from any older 
person, or a single fete. Very early, too, strict duties 
devolved upon him. A daily portion of the work of 
the establishment, the care of the domestic animals, 
the cutting and piling of wood, or tasks in the garden, 
strengthened his muscles and gave vigor and tone to 
his nerves. From his father and mother he inherited 
a perfectly solid, healthy organization of brain, muscle, 
and nerves, and the uncaressing, let-alone system under 
which he was brought up gave him early habits of 
vigor and self-reliance." 

At the age of four, he entered school, commencing his 
education under the Widow Kilbourn, where he learned 
the alphabet, and hemmed Marm Kilbourn's towels and 
check aprons. He was a rather backward child, with 
a dull memory, and a thick, indistinct utterance. The 
latter defect was due partly to timidity, and partly to 
an affection of the tonsils. The stern, gloomy, puri- 
tanic discipline to which he was subjected chilled him, 
and kept back the natural sweetness of his disposition. 
Some idea of the character of the religious impressions 
implanted in his mind may be formed by a perusal of 
the following incident, which is related by Mrs. Stowe : 
When a very little fellow, and barely able to manage 



68 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

the steady-going old family horse, Henry was driving 
his stepmother — a lady for whom he always entertained 
the profoundest respect — in the chaise. During the 
drive, the church-bell began to toll for a departing soul, 
some one having just died in the village. Mrs. Beecher 
turned to the boy, and said to him solemnly : " Henry, 
what do you think of when you hear a bell tolling 
like that ? " Astonished, and awe-struck at having his 
thoughts inquired into, Henry blushed and hung his 
head, too much confused to reply. "I think," continued 
the good lady, "2" think, was that soul prepared? It 
has gone into eternity." " The effect on the child's 
mind," says Mrs. Stowe, " was a shiver of dread, like 
the being turned out without clothing among the icy 
winds of the Litchfield hills. The vague sense of infi- 
nite, inevitable doom underlying all the footsteps of 
life, added to a natural disposition to yearning and 
melancholy." 

Years afterwards, at the height of his fame as a 
preacher of the gospel of Christ, he thus expressed 
himself concerning his feelings at this period of his 
life : " I think that to force childhood to associate religion 
with such dry morsels is to violate the spirit, not only 
of the New Testament, but of common sense as well. 
I know one thing, that if I am ' lax and latitudinarian,' 
the Sunda}' Catechism is to blame for a part of it. The 
dinners that I have lost because I could not go through 
' sanctification,' and ' justification,' and 'adoption,' and 
all such questions, lie heavily on my memory ! I do 
not know that they have brought forth any blossoms. 
I have a kind of grudge against many of those truths 
that I was taught in my childhood, and I am not con- 
scious that they have waked up a particle of faith in me. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 69 

My good old aunt in heaven — I wonder what she is 
doing:. I take it that she now sits beauteous, clothed 
in white, that round her sit chanting cherub children, 
and that she is opening to them from her larger range 
sweet stories, every one fraught with thought and taste, 
and feeling, and lifting them up to a higher plane. 
One Sunday afternoon with my Aunt Esther did me 
more good than forty Sundays in church with my 
father He thundered over my head, and she sweetly 
instructed me down in my heart. The promise that 
she would read Joseph's history to me on Sunday was 
enough to draw a silver thread of obedience through 
the entire week ; and if I was tempted tc break my 
promise, I said, i No ; Aunt Esther is going to read 
on Sunday ;' and I would do, or I would not do, all 
through the week, for the sake of getting that sweet 
instruction on Sunday. And to parents I say, Truth 
is graded. Some parts of God's truth are for children, 
some parts are for the nascent intellectual period, and 
some parts are for later spiritual developments. Do 
not take the last things first. Do not take the latest 
processes of philosophy and bring them prematurely to 
the understanding. In teaching truth to your children, 
you are to avoid tiring them." 

When he was ten years old, Henry was sent to the 
school of the Rev. Mr. Langdon, at Bethlehem, Con- 
necticut. He was stout and well grown in body, but 
very backward in education. He spent a winter at 
this school, boarding at a neighboring farm-house. He 
did not learn much, and the greater part of his spare 
time was passed in studying Nature, that great book 
from which he has learned the profoundest lessons of 
his life. With his gun in hand, he would roam for 



70 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

hours over the Connecticut hills, killing no game, but 
enchanted with the beauty of the prospect, studying 
the landscape, drinking in its beauty, and listening 
dreamily to the sound of the birds flitting over the 
fields, and the gurgle of the brooks breaking down 
through their rocky channels. In this way the habit 
of reverie, born with him, grew upon him and shaped 
his character. To this day, though one of the hardest 
workers of the nation, this love of reverie, or day-dream- 
ing, constitutes one of his most marked characteristics. 

His father, disheartened at the poor progress made 
by this boy who had reached the ripe age of ten, turned 
him over to his eldest sister, Miss Catharine Beecher, 
then the head of a flourishing young ladies' school in 
Hartford. Here he made himself a great favorite with 
the girls, but Miss Catharine, at the end of six months, 
abandoned the task, and returned him to his father, 
declaring that she could do nothing with him. 

When he was twelve years old, his father removed to 
Boston to assume the charge of a church in that city. 
This transfer to the midst of a large city had a marked 
effect upon Henry Ward. His father entered him at 
the Latin School, and begged him not to disgrace him 
any longer by his stupidity. This appeal aroused the 
little fellow's pride, and he went at his studies so man- 
fully that he soon acquired a fair knowledge of Latin 
and the English branches. This cost him severe and 
unremitting labor, and his health began to decline. As 
a relaxation his father advised him to enter upon a 
course of biographical reading; but it would seem that 
he left the boy to choose his own subjects, for he read 
the lives of Captain Cook, Lord Nelson, and the great 
naval commanders of the world. He was so charmed 



THE BBOOKLYX SCAXDAL. 71 

with these recitals that he was filled with a desire to 
become a sailor. Once or twice he resolved to run 
away to sea, but the home-ties were too strong for him. 
His father, perceiving his inclination, wisely appeared 
to fall in with it, and persuaded him to undertake the 
study of mathematics as a means of preparing himself 
for a position in the navy, well knowing that time 
would cure what was only a fancy on the part of 
his son. 

In consequence of this agreement, Henry was sent 
to the Mount Pleasant Institute at Amherst. Here he 
became the room-mate of his instructor in mathematics, 
a young man named Fitzgerald, for whom he conceived 
a warm attachment. Fitzgerald soon discovered that 
Henry had no natural aptitude for mathematics, and 
exerted himself to cultivate it in him. His efforts were 
ultimately rewarded by Henry's obtaining in conse- 
quence of them a respectable knowledge of this science. 
At Amherst Henry took lessons in elocution from Prof. 
John E. Lovell, under whose able guidance he succeeded 
in overcoming the thickness and indistinctness of speech 
which had proved such a drawback to him. He re~ 
mained at Amherst for three years, devoting himself 
to hard and faithful study, and took rank as one of the 
brightest and most promising pupils in the school. At 
the close of his preparatory course, he entered Amherst 
College, and graduated from it with distinction in 1834. 

Soon after entering the Mount Pleasant Seminary,. 
an event occurred which shaped his whole future life. 
A great revival of religion was held in the place,, 
which so impressed Henry that he resolved to become 
a minister of the gospel, and from this time all his 
studies had this ultimate object in view. 



72 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Upon leaving college he went to Ohio, his father 
having removed to Cincinnati in 1832, to enter upon the 
presidency of Lane Seminary. He at once began his 
course of theological study in the Seminary. His pre- 
ceptor was Professor Stowe, to whom his sister Harriet 
was married a year or two later. Upon completing his 
studies Mr. Beecher was ordained into the ministry of 
the Presbyterian Church. 

"As the time drew near in which Mr. Beecher was 
to assume the work of the ministry," says Mrs. Stowe, 
" he was oppressed by a deep melancholy. He had the 
most exalted ideas of what ought to be done by a 
Christian minister. He had transferred to that pro- 
fession all those ideals bf courage, enterprise, zeal and 
knightly daring which were the dreams of his boyhood, 
and which he first hoped to realize in the naval pro- 
fession. He felt that the holy calling stood high 
above all others; that to enter it from any unholy 
motive, or to enter and not do a worthy work in it, 
was a treason to all honor. 

" His view of the great object of the ministry was 
sincerely and heartily the same with that of his father, 
to secure the regeneration of the individual heart by 
the Divine Spirit, and thereby to effect the regener- 
ation of human society. The problem that oppressed 
him was, how to do this. His father had used cer- 
tain moral and intellectual weapons, and used them 
strongly and effectively, because employing them with 
undoubting faith. So many other considerations had 
come into his mind to qualify and limit that faith, so 
many new modes of thought and inquiry, that were 
partially inconsistent with the received statements of 
his party, that he felt he could never grasp and wield 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 73 

them with the force which could make them efficient. 
It was no comfort to him that he could wield the 
weapons of his theological party so as to dazzle and 
confound objectors, while all the time conscious in his 
own soul of objections more profound and perplexities 
more bewildering. Like the shepherd boy of old, he 
saw the giant of sin stalking through the world, defy- 
ing the armies of the living God, and longed to attack 
him ; but the armor in which he had been equipped 
for the battle was no help but only an encumbrance. 

" His brother, who studied with him, had already 
become an unbeliever and thrown up the design of 
preaching, and he could not bear to think of adding to 
his father's trials by deserting the standard. Yet his 
distress and perplexity were so great that at times he 
seriously contemplated going into some other pro- 
fession. . . . . 

" In his last theological term he took a Bible class in 
the city of Cincinnati, and began studying and teach- 
ing the Evangelists. With the course of this study 
and teaching came a period of spiritual clairvoyance. 
His mental perplexities were relieved, and the great 
question of ' what to preach ' was solved. The shep- 
herd boy laid aside his cumbrous armor, and found in a 
clear brook a simple stone that smote down the giant; 
and so, from the clear waters of the gospel narrative, 
Mr. Beecher drew forth that c white stone with a new 
name,' which was to be the talisman of his ministry. 
To present Jesus Christ personally as the Friend and 
Helper of humanity, Christ as God impersonate, eter- 
nally and by a necessity of his nature helpful and 
remedial, and restorative, the Friend of each individual 
soul, and thus the Friend of all society — this was the 



74 THE TEUE HISTORY OF 

one thing which his soul rested on as a worthy object 
in entering the ministry. He afterwards said, in 
speaking of his feelings at this time, ' I was like the 
man in the story to whom a fairy gave a purse with 
a single piece of money in it, which he always found 
again as soon as he had spent it. I thought I knew at 
least one thing to preach. I found it included every- 
thing.' " 

Mr. Beecher married soon after entering the minis- 
try, and began his pastoral life in charge of a church 
at Lawrenceburg, Indiana, on the Ohio river, about 
twenty miles below Cincinnati. It was a plain, hum- 
ble little church over which he presided, and his salary 
was small and his work hard, for the church was poor. 
He says he did about all the church work; was sexton 
and bell-ringer as well as pastor, sweeping the church 
and making the fires with his own hands. " I did all," 
he said drily, " but come to hear myself preach — that 
they had to do." 

His stay at Lawrenceburg was short, as he was soon 
called to a church in Indianapolis, then a small and 
struggling place, although the State capital. 

He spent eight years in this charge — eight years 
filled full of hard and useful labor, which constituted 
his true education for the great work of his life. 
Besides conducting two services on Sunday, and five 
meetings in the week in various parts of the city, he 
gave, with the consent of his congregation, three 
months of each year to missionary work in other parts 
of the State, through which he travelled on horseback. 
It was here that he learned how to preach. He did not 
trust everything to his Bible and text-books, but soon 
learned that his chief study was man. He found it 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 75 

necessary to understand human nature to preach to 
it successfully. Doctrinal sermons were well enough 
iu their way, but if he was to save men he must teach 
them how to carry their religion into their daily lives. 
To do this successfully, he must enter into their hopes, 
plans, fears, and daily thoughts, so that he could 
preach to them on the topics uppermost in their minds 
all the week. " Then came the question, how shall 
one man know that which is uppermost in the thoughts 
of many ? He went into the places of public resort, 
where men were accustomed to gather and hear the 
news and made it his practice to listen to their conver- 
sations. In this way he began to know the people to 
whom he preached as few pastors know their flocks, 
and he was enabled by this knowledge to apply his 
teachings to their daily lives, and to send them forth 
to their duties warned by his reproofs or cheered by 
his intelligent counsel and sympathy. This practice, 
modified at times as circumstances have required, he 
has steadfastly continued, and in it lies the secret of his 
success as a preacher. Said a gentleman, not long since 
— himself a member of a different denomination — 
' Beecher's sermons do me more good than any I hear 
elsewhere. They never fail to touch upon some topic 
of importance that has engaged my thoughts during the 
week. Dropping all technicalities, and steering clear 
of the vexed questions of theology, he talks to me in 
such a way that I am able to carry Christ into the 
most trifling of my daily affairs, and to carry him 
there as my Sympathizer and Helper, as well as my 
Judge." 3 It is not surprising that Mr. Beecher 
became one of the most famous preachers in the West, 
and that his ministry was very fruitful in bringing 



76 THE TKUE HISTORY OF 

people into the church. His people were devotedly 
attached to him. One of them writing of him after a 
lapse of more than twenty years says, " It is not to be 
wondered at that the few of his flock who yet remain 
among us always speak of ' Henry ' with beaming eyes 
and mellowed voices." 

" The Western States at this time," says Mrs. Stowe, 
"were the scenes of much open vice. Gambling, 
drinking, licentiousness were all rife in the commu- 
nity, and against each of these, Mr. Beecher lifted up 
his testimony. A course of sermons on those subjects 
preached in Indianapolis, and afterwards published 
under the title of ' Lectures to Young Men,' excited 
in the day of their delivery a great sensation. . . . 
Mr. Beecher's peculiar social talent, his convivial 
powers, and his habits of close Shakespearian observa- 
tion, gave him the key of human nature. Many a 
gambler or drunkard, in their better bours, were 
attracted towards a man who met them as a brother, 
and seemed to value and aim for the better parts of 
their nature. When Mr. Beecher left Indianapolis, 
gome of his most touching interviews and parting gifts 
were from men of this class, whom he had followed in 
their wanderings and tried to save. Some he could 
save, and some were too far in the whirlpool for his 
arm to pull them out. One of them said when he 
heard of his leaving, ' Before anything or anybody on 
earth, I do love Beecher. I know he would have 
saved me if he could.' " 

Mr. Beecher was much attached to the West, and 
to its people, but the climate was not suited to the 
health of his family, and he was obliged to make a 
change. Plymouth Church had just been organized as 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 77 

a new Congregational venture in Brooklyn, and in 
August, 1847, Mr. Beecher received a call from the 
congregation to become its pastor. He accepted it, 
resigned his charge in Indianapolis, removed to Brook- 
lyn, and was publicly installed Pastor of Plymouth 
Church, on the 11th of November, 1847. He at once 
announced in Plymouth Church his determination to 
preach Christ among the people not as an absolute 
system of doctrines, not as a bygone historical person- 
age, but as the living Lord and God, and to bring all 
the ways and usages of society to the test of his 
standards. He announced also that he considered 
temperance and opposition to slavery as parts of the 
Gospel of Christ, and should preach them to the people 
accordingly. Consequently, in the agitation which pre- 
ceded the Compromise Measures of 1850, Plymouth 
Pulpit uttered its thunders against the sin of slavery. 
From that time Mr. Beecher ranked as one of the 
foremost exponents of the Anti-Slavery sentiment of 
the country. Viewing slavery as a personal as well as 
a national sin, he regarded the pulpit as the proper 
place for its denunciation ; and though his course laid 
him open to the charge of " preaching politics," he 
went on consistently in the line of his convictions, 
doing what he believed to be his duty, and yielding 
nothing to popular clamor. " When the battle of the 
settlement of Kansas was going on, and the East was 
sending forth her colonies as lambs among wolves, Mr. 
Beecher fearlessly advocated the necessity of going out 
armed, and a subscription was raised in Plymouth 
Church to supply every family with a Bible and a 
rifle. A great commotion was then raised, and the 
inconsistency of such a gift from a professedly Chris- 



78 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

tian church was much insisted on. Since then, more 
than one church in New England has fitted out sol- 
diers and prepared munitions of war, and more than 
one clergyman has preached warlike sermons." 

Soon after entering upon the Pastorate of Plymouth 
Church, Mr. Beecher became a regular contributor to 
The Independent, a weekly paper devoted to religious, 
social, and political topics, and which he had helped to 
establish. His articles were marked with a star, and 
became very popular, adding very much to the success 
of the journal. At a subsequent date he became the 
editor of The Independent, and his sermons were regu- 
larly reported by a stenographer, and published in that 
paper. His first contributions were subsequently col- 
lected and reprinted in book- form as the " Star 
Papers," and were eminently successful. He has since 
written and published a number of volumes, among 
which are the following : Norwood, a tale of New Eng- 
land life; several volumes of Lecture-Room Talks; 
Lectures to Young Men ; Lectures on Preaching, three 
volumes; Fruits, Flowers and Farming; The Life of 
Jesus the Christ, the first volume of which has been 
published ; and twelve volumes of Sermons. He has 
also been a constant contributor to the New York 
Ledger, and is now the editor of The Christian Union. 
Besides these labors, he has been for over twenty-five 
years constantly in the lecture field, and has made 
numerous addresses to public assemblies upon the 
questions of the day. 

In all this busy life his pastoral duties have been 
discharged with strict fidelity. The business of his life 
is preaching ; these other labors are his recreations. 
His sermons have not been preached to Plymouth 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 79 

Congregation alone, large as that is.' Eeported by a 
stenographer, they are published weekly, and given to 
the world. Better still, they are read by thousands, 
so that it may be said that Mr. Beecher preaches to 
the largest congregation in the world. Of these ser- 
mons one of the leading authorities of the English 
literary world has said : " They are without equal 
among the published sermons of the day. Everywhere 
we find ourselves in the hands of a man of high and 
noble impulses, of thorough fearlessness, of broad and 
generous sympathies, who has consecrated all his 
wealth of intelligence and heart to the service of 
preaching the gospel." 

Plymouth Church was organized as an experiment, 
and was at first a poor, weak, struggling congregation. 
It is now the most compact, the best organized, and 
one of the most prosperous congregations in America. 
This is due to the eloquence and personal services of 
Mr. Beecher, who has drawn into it the elements 
which make up its strength. It is an independent 
establishment, and is subject to no control of a synod 
or other religious body, but manages its affairs in its 
own way. The control of the affairs of the church is 
vested in a Board of Trustees, of which Mr. Beecher is 
simply a member ex-officio. He has no authority over 
this Board, unless called by its members to preside 
over its deliberations. His views naturally have great 
weight with the members, but the trustees, who are 
practical business men, frequently decide against him. 
The support of the church is derived from the rental 
of its pews, which amounts to between forty and fifty 
thousand dollars per annum. The pastor receives a 
handsome salary — said to be $25,000 per annum; 



80 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

the rest of the receipts go into the treasury of the 
church. Besides the church proper, the Plymouth 
Congregation support two missions. " No church in 
the country furnishes a larger body of lay teachers, 
exhorters, and missionaries in every department of 
human and Christian labor." 

Plymouth Church is a plain brick building, and 
stands in Orange street, between Hicks and Henry 
streets, in Brooklyn, just a little way out of Fulton 
street. The interior is simple, but attractive, elegant 
and comfortable. It is a vast hall, around the four 
sides of which sweeps an immense gallery. Over the 
entrance is a second gallery, above the first. The pre- 
vailing color of the interior is white, with a tinge of 
pink. The upholstery is of a bright, cheerful red. 
The seats in the body of the church are arranged in 
semi-circular rows. At the lower end of the church is 
a simple platform, containing merely the " Plymouth 
Pulpit" and the pastor's chair. The pulpit is a light 
and graceful stand, made of olive wood brought from 
the Garden of Gethsemane. Above the pulpit is the 
gallery containing the magnificent organ, at which 
John Zundel, prince of organists, presides. The 
church will seat twenty-five hundred people, but 
nearly three thousand are gathered in the vast interior 
at every service. 

By the rules of the church all pew-holders must be 
in their seats ten minutes before the hour for the com- 
mencement of the service, and until then their seats 
are held for them. At twenty minutes past ten 
o'clock the church is free to strangers, who are courte- 
ously provided with seats by the ushers, of whom a 
number are always in attendance. The interior is 



THE BKOOKLYX SCAXDAL. 81 

quickly filled, and by the opening of the service there 
is not even standing room left. 

The platform is usually profusely and tastefully 
decorated with flowers, among which a child or two 
seats itself if the crowd below be great. Sometimes 
the little ones are thick along the platform and the 
steps, a sight which rarely fails to bring a pleasant 
smile to the pastor's face as he enters. Mr. Beecher 
enters from his study by a little door at the back of the 
platform. He dresses simply in clerical black, and his 
manner is quiet, natural and self-possessed. He reads 
the Bible as if he were talking to his people, easily and 
unaffectedly, and his manner in prayer is quiet and 
earnest. He joins heartily in the singing, and such 
singing as it is ! It is worth going a hundred miles to 
hear. It is simply grand. 

" The gem of the whole service," says a recent w r riter, 
" is the sermon ; and these sermons are characteristic 
of the man. They come warm and fresh from the 
heart, and they go home to the hearer, giving him food 
for thought for days afterward. . . He enchains the 
attention of his auditors from the first, and they hang 
upon his utterances until the close of the sermon. 

" He knows human nature thoroughly, and he talks 
to his people of what they have been thinking of during 
the week, of trials that have perplexed them, and of 
joys which have blessed them. He takes the clerk 
and the merchant to task for their conduct in the walks 
of business, and warns them of the snares and pitfalls 
which lie along their paths. He strips the thin guise 
of honesty from the questionable transactions of Wall 
Street, and holds them up to public scorn. He startles 
many a one by his sudden- penetration and denunciation 



82 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

of what that one supposes to be the secrets of his heart. 
His dramatic power is extraordinary. He can hardly 
be responsible for it, since it breaks forth almost with- 
out his will. It is simply unavoidable with him. He 
moves his audience to tears, or brings a mirthful smile 
to their lips, with a power that is irresistible. His 
illustrations and figures are drawn chiefly from nature, 
and are fresh and striking. They please the subtlest 
philosopher who hears him, and illuminate the mind 
of the average listener with a flood of light. He can 
startle his people with the terrors of the law, but he 
prefers to preach the Gospel of Love. ' God's love for 
those who are scattered and lost,' he says, ' is intenser 
and deeper than the love even of a mother. . . . 
God longs to bring you home more than you long to 
get there. He has been calling, calling, calling, and 
listening for your answer. And when you are found, 
and you lay your head on the bosom of Jesus, and you 
are at rest, you will not be so glad as he will be who 
declared that, like a shepherd, he had joy over one 
sinner that repented more than over ninety 7 and nine 
just persons that needed no repentance/ 

" Religion is to him an abiding joy ; it is perfect love, 
and casteth out fear. It has no gloom, no terror in it, 
and he says to his people : ' If God gave you gayety 
and cheer of spirits, lift up the careworn by it. 
Wherever you go, shine and sing.' 

" The sum and substance, the burden of all his 
preaching is Christ: ' Behold the Lamb of God, that 
taketh away the sin of the world. I present Jesus to 
you as your atoning Saviour; as God's sacrifice for sin ; 
as that new and living way by which alone a sinful 
creature can ascend and meet a pure and just God. I 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 83 

bring this question home to you as a sinner. man ! 
full of transgressions, habitual in iniquities, tainted and 
tarnished, utterly undone before God, what will you do 
with this Jesus that comes as God's appointed sacrifice 
for sin, your only hope, and your only Saviour ? Will 
you accept him? Will you, by personal and living 
faith, accept him as your Saviour from sin ? I ask not 
that you should go with me into a discourse upon the 
relations of Christ's life, of his sufferings, of his death ; 
to the law of God, or to the government of God. 
Whatever may be the philosophy of those relations, the 
matter in hand is one of faith rather than of philoso- 
phy ; and the question is, will you take Christ to be 
your soul's Saviour?'" 

His sermons are extempore. He studies the subject 
just before going into the pulpit, and blocks out the 
notes from which he preaches his discourse. He says 
he exerts himself most in bad weather, in order to give 
his people an additional inducement to come to church 
in rainy weather. " Once," he said, " it snowed or 
rained every Sabbath in a certain winter, and the effort 
I had to make to remain faithful to this rule came near 
killing me." 

Attached to the church, and under the same roof, 
are a large lecture-room, the pastor's study, committee 
rooms, and an elegant parlor. In the last, social gather- 
ings are held at stated times, for the purpose of bring- 
ing the parishioners into more familiar intercourse with 
the pastor and with each other. To visit all his peo- 
ple at their houses would be an impossibility, for they 
are scattered over Brooklyn, New York city, Jersey 
City, and the neighboring towns of Long Island. 

In the lecture-room are held the Friday evening 



84 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

meetings, at which Mr. Beecher delivers his famous 
" Lecture-Room Talks." This is a plain and simple 
hall, provided with comfortable seats, and a grand 
piano. On a low platform covered with green baize 
are the pastor's chair and table. The attendance is 
large, but those present are members of the congrega- 
tion. Strangers rarely attend these meetings. The 
proceedings are utterly without form, the effort of the 
pastor being to make them the occasions of free and 
familiar interchanges of thought. Mr. James Parton 
thus describes one of these meetings, which may serve 
as a specimen of all : 

" Mr. Beecher took his seat on the platform, and, after a 
short pause, began the exercises by saying, in a low tone, these 
words: 'Six twenty-two. 5 

"A rustling of the leaves of hymn-books interpreted the 
meaning of this mystical utterance, which otherwise might have 
been taken as announcing a discourse upon the prophetic num- 
bers. The piano confirmed the interpretation ; and then the 
company burst into one of those joyous and unanimous singings 
which are so enchanting a feature of the services of this church. 
Loud rose the beautiful harmony of voices, constraining every 
one to join in the song, even those most unused to sing. When 
it was ended, the pastor, in the same low tone, pronounced a 
name, upon which one of the brethren rose to his feet } and the 
rest slightly inclined their heads. . . . The prayers were 
all brief, perfectly quiet and simple, and free from the routine 
or regulation expressions. There were but two or three of 
them, alternating with singing; and when that part of the ex- 
ercises was concluded, Mr. Beecher had scarcely spoken. The 
meeting ran alone, in the most spontaneous and pleasant man- 
ner. . . . There was a pause after the last hymn died 
away, and then Mr. Beecher, still seated, began, in the tone of 
conversation, to speak somewhat after this manner: 

"'When/ said he, 'I first began to walk as a Christian, in 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 85 

my youthful zeal I made many resolutions that were well meant, 
but indiscreet. Among others, I remember I resolved to pray, 
at least once, in some way, every hour that I was awake. I 
tried faithfully to keep this resolution, but never having suc- 
ceeded a single day, I suffered the pangs of self-reproach, until 
reflection satisfied me that the only wisdom possible, with re- 
gard to such a resolve, was to break it. I remember, too, that 
I made a resolution to speak upon religion to every person with 
whom I conversed, — on steamboats, in the streets, anywhere. 
In this, also, I failed, as I ought; and I soon learned that, in 
the sowing of such seed, as in other sowings, times, and seasons, 
and methods must be considered and selected, or a man may 
defeat his own object, and make religion loathsome.' 

" In language like this he introduced the topic of the even- 
ing's conversation, which was, How far, and on what occasions, 
and in what manner, one person may invade, so to speak, the 
personality of another, and speak to him upon his moral con- 
dition. The pastor expressed his own opinion, always in the 
conversational tone, in a talk of ten minutes' duration, in the 
course of which he applauded, not censured, the delicacy which 
causes most people to shrink from doing it. He said that a 
man's personality was not a macadamized road for every vehicle 
to drive upon at will, but rather a sacred enclosure, to be 
entered, if at all, with the consent of the owner, and with defer- 
ence to his feelings and tastes. He maintained, however, that 
there were times and modes in which this might properly be 
done, and that every one had a duty to perform of this nature. 
When he had finished his observations, he said the subject was 
open to the remarks of others ; whereupon a brother instantly 
rose and made a very honest confession. 

" He said that he had never attempted to perform the duty 
in question without having a palpitation of the heart, and a 
complete turning over of his inner man. He had often reflected 
upon this curious fact, but was not able to account for it. He 
had not allowed this repugnance to prevent his doing the duty; 
but he always had to rush at it and perform it by a sort of coup- 
de-main, for, if he allowed himself to think about the matter, he 



86 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

could not do it at all. He concluded by saying that he should 
be very much obliged to any one if he could explain this 
mystery. 

11 The pastor said : ' May it not be the natural delicacy we feel, 
and ought to feel, in approaching the interior consciousness of 
another person ? ' 

"Another brother rose. There was no hanging back at this 
meeting; there were no awkward pauses; every one seemed full 
of matter. The new speaker was not inclined to admit the ex- 
planation suggested by the pastor. ' Suppose/ said he, ' we 
were to see a man in imminent danger of immediate destruction, 
and there was one way of escape, and but one, which we saw, 
and he did not, should we feel any delicacy in running up to 
him and urging him to fly for his life? Is it not a want of 
faith on our part that causes the reluctance and hesitation we 
all feel in urging others to avoid a peril so much more mo- 
mentous ? ' 

" Mr. Beecher said the cases were not parallel. Irreligious 
persons, he remarked, were not in imminent danger of immedi- 
ate death; they might die to-morrow; but in all probability 
they would not, and an ill-timed or injudicious admonition 
might forever repel them. We must accept the doctrine of 
probabilities, and act in accordance with it in this particular, as 
in all others. 

"Another brother had a puzzle to present for solution. He 
said that he too had experienced the repugnance to which allu- 
sion had been made; but what surprised him most was, that the 
more he loved a person, and the nearer he was related to him, 
the more difficult he found it to converse with him upon his 
spiritual state. Why is this? 'I should like to have this 
question answered/ said he, ' if there is an answer to it/ 

" Mr. Beecher observed that this was the universal experi- 
ence, and he was conscious himself of a peculiar reluctance and 
embarrassment in approaching one of his own household on the 
subject in question. He thought it was due to the fact that we 
respect more the personal rights of those near to us than we do 
those of others, and it was more difficult to break in upon the 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 87 

routine of our ordinary familiarity with them. We are accus- 
tomed to a certain tone which it is highly embarrassing to jar 
upon. 

" Captain Duncan related two amusing anecdotes to illustrate 
the right way and the wrong way of introducing religious con- 
versation. In his office there was sitting one day a sort of lay 
preacher, who was noted for lugging in his favorite topic in the 
most forbidding and abrupt manner. A sea captain came in, 
who was introduced to this individual. 

" l Captain Porter/ said he, with awful solemnity, i are you a 
captain in Israel ? ' 

" The honest sailor was so abashed and confounded at this 
novel salutation, that he could only stammer out an incoherent 
reply; and he was evidently disposed to give the tactless zealot 
a piece of his mind, expressed in the language of the quarter- 
deck. When the solemn man took his leave, the disgusted 
captain said, ' If ever I should be coming to your office again, 
and that man should be here, I wish you would send me word, 
and I'll stay away.' 

"A few days after another clergyman chanced to be in the 
office, no other than Mr. Beecher himself, and another captain 
came in, a roistering, swearing, good- hearted fellow. The con- 
versation fell upon sea-sickness, a malady to which Mr. Beecher 
is peculiarly liable. The captain also was one of the few sailors 
who are always sea-sick in going to sea, and gave a moving 
account of his sufferings from that cause. Mr. Beecher, after 
listening attentively to his tale, said, ' Captain Duncan, if I was; 
a preacher to such sailors as your friend here, I should repre^ 
sent hell as an eternal voyage, with every man on board in the 
agonies of sea-sickness, the crisis always imminent, but never- 
coming.' 

" This ludicrous and most unprofessional picture amused the 
old salt exceedingly, and won his entire good-will toward th& 
author of it • so that, after Mr. Beecher left, he said, ' That's a 
good fellow, Captain Duncan. I like him, and I'd like to hear 
him talk more.' 

" Captain Duncan contended that this free and easy way of 



88 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

address was just the thing for such characters. Mr. Beecher 
had shown him, to his great surprise, that a man could be a 
decent and comfortable human being although he was a min- 
ister, and had so gained his confidence and good-will that he 
could say any thing to him at their next interview. Captain 
Duncan finished his remarks by a decided expression of his dis- 
approval of the canting regulation phrases so frequently em- 
ployed by religious people, which are perfectly nauseous to men 
of the world. 

" This interesting conversation lasted about three-quarters 
of an hour, and ended, not because the theme seemed exhausted, 
but because the time was up. We have only given enough of it 
to convey some little idea of its spirit. The company again 
broke into one of their cheerful hymns, and the meeting was 
dismissed in the usual manner." 

Mr. Beecher has several times visited Europe, where 
he enjoys a reputation equal to that which he has built 
up among his own countrymen. And well does he 
deserve it. As a pulpit orator, he has not his peer 
among the English-speaking nations, and there is no 
man on earth whose great talents have been more 
faithfully given to the cause of Christianity. He is a 
stout, heavily-built man, with a powerful muscular de- 
velopment, looking more like a prosperous farmer with 
a merry heart and a clear conscience than a preacher. 
His face is that of a born orator, earnest, impassioned 
and full of genius. He dresses simply, and lives in a 
careful and frugal manner. He is now sixty-one years 
old, and is beginning to show his age. Yet he is full 
of energy, with a boundless capacity for work, and an 
untiring industry in the performance of it. 

Such a man is an honor to his country and to his 
age, and his reputation is a national treasure. For 
many years Mr. Beecher has held a prominent place 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 89 

in the regards of his countrymen. Even many of his 
old political enemies have come to love and honor him 
for his true manhood and his great genius. When the 
recent infamous assertions were put forth concerning 
his private life, there was a general outcry of indigna- 
tion from the respectable portion of the community. 
The proud silence which he maintained for so long was 
appreciated, and when, at last, yielding to the desire 
of his friends that he should deny the charges made 
against him, he did so in general but emphatic terms, 
his denial was accepted by the great mass of his coun- 
trymen. When these charges took a more definite 
form in the statement of Theodore Tilton, Mr. Beecher 
promptly demanded of his church, to which he was 
primarily responsible, an investigation of all the re- 
ports concerning his alleged immoralities. This inves- 
tigation was made, carefully, deliberately, and without 
haste, and resulted in the triumphant vindication of 
the character of Mr. Beecher. The verdict of the 
Investigating Committee was hailed with satisfaction 
by good men and women throughout the length and 
breadth of the Union. That there were dissatisfied 
persons — persons who, in spite of the overwhelming 
testimony in his behalf and the absence of proof 
against him, made haste to declare him guilty — is true ; 
but it is also true beyond question that the confidence 
of the great mass of his countrymen in him has never 
wavered, and that they regard him with even greater 
affection for the trial he has passed through so tri- 
umphantly. 

The common sense of the American people sus- 
tained the verdict of the committee. Looking beyond 
the verdict and the evidence upon which it was based, 



90 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

they beheld a man whose long and busy life had been 
spent in the cause of Christianity, in the constant and 
noble endeavor to lift men up out of their baser selves 
and make them fit for the kingdom of God — a man in 
whose utterances not one gross, ignoble or un-Christian 
sentiment can be found — charged with the most shame- 
ful crimes, branded as a hyprocrite, a liar, an adulterer, 
and a defamer of the man he was charged with having 
injured, and they refused to believe these charges. 
Common sense revolted from belie vino: these things of 
one whose w r hole life contradicted them. To ask 
them to credit such slanders was to insult their intel- 
ligence. They trusted the evidence of nearly forty 
years of purity and devotion, and the result has vindi- 
cated both Mr. Beecher's uprightness and the correct- 
ness of the popular judgment. No man ever had a 
greater triumph ; no man ever deserved it more. 
Writing to a friend just after the attack upon him by 
Mrs. Woodhull, Mr. Beecher said, "Living or dying, 
I am the Lord's. He knows it and I know it. After 
that it matters little what happens." Many a man 
has stood clear of guilt in the sight of God, but has 
been judged guilty by his fellow-men. Mr. Beecher 
has not been called upon to bear this trial. Innocent 
of wrong before God, he has also been vindicated in 
the sight of his countrymen, and he can afford to dis- 
regard the handful whose dirty imaginations lead 
them still to repeat the slanders which have so fatally 
recoiled upon his assailants. 

Dr. J. G. Holland, in the October number of Scrib- 
ners Magazine, well expresses the sentiments of the 
more cultivated class of the community, in the follow- 
ing article : 



THE BKOOKLYN SCANDAL. 91 

If any of our readers care to refer to the number of this 
magazine dated January, 1873, they will find under the title, 
" The Popular Capacity for Scandal," all that we have ever 
cared to say concerning the scandal in Plymouth Church, 
recently and forever exploded. There never was any proba- 
bility in it. The idea that Mr. Beecher, who had carried a pure 
name through life, should after having lived to be nearly sixty 
years old, reared a family, and been subjected to the most tre- 
mendous drafts upon his vitality, gone out of his way to seduce 
an innocent member of his own flock, the wife of a personal 
friend to whom he had married her, was simply preposterous. 
The absurdity of it is greater when it is remembered that his 
life had not been a brutal one, but one in which the nobler 
sentiments had always been those receiving special culture. 
The crime charged against him is probably the last toward 
which he would have been tempted. We say there never was 
any probability in it, regarded purely from a physiological 
point of view ; and when we remember that the person who 
originated it continued to cling to the nest which he professed 
to believe was dishonored by repeated crimes against its purity, 
the improbability grew in all practical results to impossibility. 

It is strange that these two circumstances — Mr. Beecher's 
age, his relations and the spiritual character of his culture, and 
his accuser's condonation of the offence which he professed to 
believe his wife had committed — had not opened the eyes of 
the public to the facts and rendered the scandal impossible. 
There are other circumstances that ougdiL to have been taken 
into consideration. If the public had fully looked in the face 
the organized and self-justified nastiness in which this scandal 
was bred, they would have seen that it was an attack on emi- 
nent purity before which it writhed in condemnation. But it 
is all over now. We suppose that none but a fool now believes 
that Mr. Beecher ever had criminal conversation with the weak 
woman whose name has been coupled w T ith his in this business, 
and that none but a worse than fool either wishes or pretends 
to believe it. Saying this the case ought to be covered, but 
unhappily, even Mr. Beecher is still blamed. Why did he not 



92 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

come out and say all he has said before? Why did he submit 
to the manipulation which proved him to be so little worldly- 
wise? Why did he hold any communication with people whom 
he ought to have known were unsafe associates ? Why did he, 
and why did he not, do a thousand things besides? 

We are not Mr. Beecher's champion, but we would like to 
ask a few questions. What business have you, oh, inquisitive 
public, with a man's mistakes? Why did you give the slight- 
est credence to this wretchedly improbable story, and put him to 
such long and inexcusable torture? He denied this s.ory over 
his own signature explicitly ; why did you not believe his de- 
nial ? Had he been in the habit of deceiving you? Did this 
tidal-wave of filth that has swept over the land originate with 
him ? Has he not been sinned against, privately and publicly, 
from the first ? That he was unwise in the management of this 
affair is a matter for your commiseration and not for your 
blame. The fact calls for your sympathy and not for your con- 
demnation. The people and the press have done that for which 
they ought to go down on their knees before Mr. Beecher. The 
sly knavery of the advice that has been meted out to him to 
confess and be forgiven, the apologies that have been made for 
him on the ground of his usefulness as a Christian preacher, 
the distinctions that have been drawn between the man and his 
work, the readiness to give credence to anything that made 
against him from the most untrustworthy sources, the bandying 
of his name as a jest — these are offences so gross that all who 
have been guilty of them should hide their heads in shame. If 
Mr. Beecher can forgive or withhold his indignation, it becomes 
the offending public to be silent. 

There is a special portion of the great public who ought to 
have a few honest words said to them, and those we propose to 
say. It cannot be denied that there was a considerable num- 
ber of the large aggregate of clergymen in this country who not 
only did not stand by Mr. Beecher on his trial, but who had 
such a degree of satisfaction in his humiliation that they could 
not contain it. There are clergymen who have aided in the 
circulation of this scandal and helped to confirm its impression 



THE BEOOKLYK SCAXDAL. 93 

upon the public mind — men who envied him, distrusted his in- 
fluence, and did not believe in the soundness of his doctrines. 
How much Christianity is it supposed there can be in any 
minister who can take the least satisfaction in the downfall of a 
professional brother? How much in him who does not refuse 
to believe anything against such a brother until his guilt is un- 
deniably proved ? Bah ! It is enough to make a man sick to 
contemplate such dastards. There is not one of them who does 
not live in a glass house. There is not one of them who is not 
closeted, more or less, with women in distress; and he only 
needs to have an observing enemy to make him the subject of a 
scandal just as cruel and causeless as that which has befallen 
Mr. Beecher. If clergymen cannot stand by one another in 
emergencies like this, can they blame the public for believing 
anything that may be said against them ? " It is a dirty bird," 
etc. 

We congratulate Mr. Beecher on his relief from the horrible 
incubus that has so long rested upon him. We congratulate all 
who have stood by him, with faith in his purity and integrity 
unshaken. We congratulate the Christian Church at large, and 
the Plymouth Church in particular, on the restoration to public 
confidence of the strongest man of the Christian pulpit. We 
congratulate the country that one of its greatest men stands re- 
deemed to its respect, and that one of its proudest names has 
emerged from a cloud of slander that can never hide it again. 



VIII. 

THEODORE TILTON. 

Theodore Tilton was born in New York city, on the 
2d of October, 1835. His father was a shoemaker, and 
made every sacrifice to give his son a good education. 
He passed through the public schools with credit, and 
entered the Free Academy, now the Free College of 
New York. He remained in this institution only two 



94 



THE TRUE HISTORY OF 




RESIDENCE OF THEODORE TILTON, NO. 174 LIVINGSTON STREET, BROOKLYN. 



years, not long enough to obtain a diploma. After 
leaving the Academy he became a reporter on the New 
York Tribune, in which capacity he acquired a good 
reputation as a short-hand writer, and was considered 
a careful, steady young man. In 1855, at the age of 
twenty, Mr. Tilton married Miss Elizabeth Richards. 
Mr. and Mrs. Tilton are the parents of seven children, 
of whom four are living at present. 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 95 

Few young men have ever entered upon life with 
more flattering prospects than Mr. Til ton. His fidelity 
to his duties as a reporter on the Tribune, and his tal- 
ents, won him the friendship of Horace Greeley. He 
matured very rapidly, passing his time among books, 
and seeming to care very little for the pleasures or 
frivolities of youth. Previous to his marriage he be- 
came a member of Plymouth Church, and it was here 
that he became acquainted with his wife, who was also 
a member of that congregation. He was married by 
Mr. Beecher, between whom and himself a warm friend- 
ship sprang up. This friendship strengthened as time 
passed on, at least upon Mr. Beecher's part. The pas- 
tor of Plymouth Church recognized the talents of his 
young friend, and exerted himself to push him for- 
ward. Mr. Tilton professed the warmest and most 
devoted love for Mr. Beecher, and there can be no 
doubt that, for a time at least, this feeling was sincere. 
Mr. Beecher was at this time one of the editors of 
TJie Independent. Mr. Tilton began very early in his 
career to report Beecher's sermons in shorthand for that 
journal, and,, encouraged by its editors, soon after began 
to write articles for the same paper. In 1861, upon 
the retirement of Doctors Bacon, Storrs and Thompson 
from the editorial department of The Independent, Mr. 
Beecher became its editor, and Mr. Tilton was made 
his assistant. During Mr. Beecher's absence in Europe 
in 1863, Mr. Tilton assumed the editorial charge of the 
paper, and conducted it to the satisfaction of both pro- 
prietor and subscribers. Soon after his return from 
Europe, Mr. Beecher resigned the control of The Inde- 
pendent, and Mr. Tilton became its chief editor. 
. Up to this time Mr. Til ton's career had been emi- 



96 THE TKUE HISTOKY OF 

nently successful. He was not only a popular editor, 
but an equally popular lecturer, and a writer of ac- 
knowledged ability. He was the controlling power of 
the leading Congregational journal of the country, and 
his friends were warranted in entertaining the most 
exalted hopes for his future. 

For some years after assuming the control of The 
Independent, Mr. Tilton's career afforded unbounded 
satisfaction to his friends. Then a change set in. 
During this time, however, the friendship between Mr. 
Beecher and Mr. Tilton had apparently been undis- 
turbed. Mr. Tilton exerted himself to induce Mr. 
Beecher to visit his house as an intimate friend, and 
the result was that Mr. Beecher, who cherished a warm 
regard for the Tilton family, became a frequent and 
honored visitor at their house. 

At length, however, a change set in. Clouds began 
to overcast the fair sky of Tilton's future. Perhaps his 
success had been too easy. About May 1, 1870, he 
became the editor of the Brooklyn Union, a daily even- 
ing journal owned by Mr. Bowen, the proprietor of The 
Independent, in addition to his labors on the latter 
journal. But by this time Mr. Bowen had had reason 
to become seriously dissatisfied with Mr. Tilton's con- 
duct of The Independent. For several years Mr. 
Tilton's doctrines, as set forth in The Independent, had 
aroused a storm of indignation and opposition among 
its subscribers, principally in the West, where this 
paper was widely circulated. " After much discussion 
this led to the starting of The Advance newspaper, in 
Chicago, to supersede The Independent. Mr. Tilton, 
while editor of The Independent, a leading religious 
newspaper, had come to deny the inspiration of tha 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 97 

Scriptures and the Divinity of Christ. His social views 
about this time also underwent a radical change in the 
direction of free love." Much of this crept into the 
editorial columns of The Independent, and letters of 
remonstrance and stoppages of the paper came so fre- 
quently from subscribers, that Mr. Bowen resolved to 
make a change in its editorial management. Still, re- 
garding Tilton as a friend, and appreciating what he 
had done for the paper in the past, he wished to make 
the change as pleasantly as possible to all parties. In 
the early part of December, 1870, he put this resolve 
into execution. " Owing to the marked change in Mr. 
Tilton's religious and social views, Mr. Bowen felt con- 
strained to give him notice that his services as editor 
of The Independent would terminate at a day named in 
the notice." 

After making this change, Mr. Bowen entered into a 
contract with Mr. Tilton to continue him as chief con- 
tributor to The Independent, and editor of the Brooklyn 
Daily Union for five years, with a liberal salary for each 
position. 

With this change in his worldly prospects came a 
change in Mr. Tilton's feelings for Mr. Beecher. It is 
hard to ascertain the exact date of this change, or the 
true cause of it, but, judging from the published testi- 
mony in the case, it is most probable that Tilton re- 
garded Beecher as responsible in some way for his loss 
of his editorial chair, and believing this, his friendship 
changed to bitter enmity, and he resolved upon re- 
venge. It would even seem that he was willing to 
perish himself, if he could drag his enemy down with 
him. The true cause of his misfortunes, however, was 
the loss of public confidence in him in consequence of 

7 



98 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

his radical change of sentiments. Even before his en- 
forced withdrawal from the editorial chair of The Inde- 
pendent, many who had once honored him had lost 
faith in him. Grave charges were whispered about 
New York and Brooklyn concerning his moral charac- 
ter, and these, whether true or false, so seriously 
affected his usefulness to The Independent, that Mr. 
Bo wen had no choice but to remove him. Indeed, 
these charges were so open and so widely circulated, 
that " within a few days after making th s contract 
(that for five years mentioned above), Mr. Bowen re- 
ceived such information of Tilton's immorality as 
alarmed him, and led to an interview between himself, 
Tilton and Oliver Johnson, at the house of Bowen, on 
the 26th day of December, 1870. At this interview 
Mr. Tilton sought to retain his place and Bowen's con- 
fidence by offering to join Bowen in an attack on Mr. 
Beecher. This interview resulted in the insolent letter 
which Mr. Tilton wrote and signed on the 27th of 
December, demanding that Mr. Beecher leave Ply- 
mouth pulpit and Brooklyn. That evening Mr. Bowen, 
on his way home, delivered this letter to Mr. Beecher. 
Mr. Beecher, on reading it, expressed his astonishment 
at the receipt of such a letter, and denounced its author. 
Mr. Bowen then derided the letter, and gave him some 
account of the reasons why he had reduced Tilton from 
the editorship of The Independent to the subordinate 
position of contributor, saying that Mr. Tilton's social 
and religious views were ruining the paper, and he was 
now considering whether he could consistently retain 
him as editor of the Brooklyn Union or chief contrib- 
utor of The Independent. They conversed for some 
time, Mr. Bowen wishing Mr. Beecher's opinion, which 



THE BEOOKLYJS" SCANDAL. 99 

was freely given. Mr. Beecher said he did not see 
how Mr. Bowen could retain his relations with Mr. 
Tilton. Mr. Beecher spoke strongly of the threaten- 
ing letter and the revelation he had just had con- 
cerning Tilton's domestic affairs. Mr. Bowen read 
Tilton's threatening letter, and said that if trouble 
came, he would stand by Mr. Beecher." 

This conversation and his own resolution were com- 
municated to Mr. Tilton by Mr. Bowen the next day, 
and the former saw himself face to face with the 
loss of his income. His rage against Beecher for the 
advice he had given Bowen was overwhelming, and 
was increased by learning that Mr. Beecher had advised 
Mrs. Tilton, who, in consequence of her unhappy do- 
mestic life, which unhappiness she alleged was produced 
by her husband's course, had applied to Mr. Beecher 
for advice, and had been advised by him to leave her 
husband. Mrs. Tilton was then very ill, and Tilton, 
taking advantage of her condition, extorted from her a 
document implicating Mr. Beecher — a document evinc- 
ing her love for her pastor, and charging him with 
having made indecent proposals to her. This was his 
first step in his plan of revenge upon his former friend. 
The others will occur in the course of the statements to 
be made in other parts of this book. 

About the 1st of January, 1871, The Golden Age 
newspaper was established in New York by Mr. Tilton 
and his friends, and he became its editor. This journal 
was devoted to the advocacy of the views which had 
caused Mr. Bowen to dispense with his services as editor 
of The Independent. Some months after the establish- 
ment of The Golden Age, Mr. Tilton published a 
Biography of Mrs. Victoria Woodhull. His intimacy 



100 THE TRUE HISTOEY OF 

with this woman had for some time disgusted his re- 
maining reputable friends, and this public indorsement 
and laudation of her made it plain that they had not 
been mistaken in the estimate they had been obliged to 
form of him of late. He was indeed a changed man. 

In the meantime Mr. Beecher had cause to believe 
that he had been misinformed as to the extent of Mr. 
Tilton's derelictions, and naturally experienced a very 
keen regret for the advice he had given Mrs. Tilton 
counselling separation, and seeing that his advice to 
Mr. Bowen had caused that gentleman to execute his 
purpose to end his connection with Tilton, his regret 
was increased to a degree of self-reproach that became 
very painful to a man of his sensitive disposition. In 
this state of mind he believed it to be his duty at any 
sacrifice to himself to overlook Tilton's treatment of 
himself, and endeavor to assist him to a return of good 
fortune. It would seem that Tilton, on his part, was 
not indisposed to feel kindly to Mr. Beecher as long as 
he was financially easy ; but as his pocket grew light, 
his sense of his injuries deepened, and his revengeful 
feelings became uncontrollable. In March, he suc- 
ceeded in recovering the sum of $7000 from Mr. Bowen 
as a forfeit for the cancellation of his contract by that 
gentleman, and in April, the famous " Tripartite 
Agreement" or "Covenant" was negotiated between 
Beecher, Bowen, and Tilton. It was as follows : 

" We three men, earnestly desiring to remove all causes of 
offence existing between us, real or fancied, and to make 
Christian reparation for injuries done or supposed to be done, 
and to efface the disturbed past, and to provide concord, good- 
will and love for the future, do declare and covenant, each to 
the other, as follows : 



THE BBOOKLYK SCAXDAL. '101 

" I. I, Henry C* Bowen, having given credit, perhaps with- 
out due consideration, to tales and innuendoes affecting Henry 
Ward Beecher, and being influenced by them, as was natural 
to a man who receives impressions suddenly, to the extent of 
repeating them (guardedly, however, and within limitations, 
and not for the purpose of injuring him, but strictly in the 
confidence of consultation), now feel that therein I did him 
wrong. Therefore, I disavow all the charges and imputations 
that have been attributed to me as having been by me made 
against Henry Ward Beecher, and I declare, fully and without 
reserve, that I know nothing which should prevent me from 
extending to him the most cordial friendship, confidence and 
Christian fellowship. And I expressly withdraw all the 
charges, imputations and innuendoes iuiputed as having been 
made and uttered by me, and set forth in a letter written by 
me to Theodore Tilton on the 1st of January, 1871 (a copy of 
which letter is hereto annexed), and I sincerely regret having 
made any imputations, charges or innuendoes unfavorable to 
the Christian character of Mr. Beecher. And I covenant and 
promise that for all future time I will never, by word or deed, 
recur to, repeat, or allude to any or either of said charges, 
imputations and innuendoes. 

" II. And I, Theodore Tilton, do, of my free will and friendly 
spirit toward Henry Ward Beecher, hereby covenant and agree 
that I will never again repeat, by mouth or word or otherwise, 
any of the allegations, or imputations, or innuendoes contained 
in my letters hereunto annexed, or any other injurious imputa- 
tions or allegations suggested by or growing out of these, and 
that I will never again bring up or hint at any difference or 
ground of complaint heretofore existing between the said Henry 
C. Bowen or myself, or the said Henry Ward Beecher. 

" III. I, Henry Ward Beecher, put the past forever out of 
sight and out of memory. I deeply regret the causes for suspi- 
cion, jealousy and estrangement which have come between us. 
It is a joy for me to have my old regard for Henry C. Bowen 
and Theodore Tilton restored, and a happiness to me to resume 
the old relations of love, respect and reliance to each and both 



102 THE TKUE HISTORY OF 

of them. If I have said anything injurious to the reputation 
of either, or have detracted from their standing and fame as 
Christian gentlemen and members of my church, I revoke it 
all, and heartily covenant to repair and reinstate them to the 
extent of my power. 

(Signed) " H. C. Bowen, 

"Theodore Tilton, 
"H. W. Beecher." 
" Brooklyn, April 2, 1872." 

In order to properly comprehend the above remark- 
able document, the reader should understand that Mr. 
Tilton had, since his dismissal by Mr. Bovven, begun 
to charge Mr. Beecher with endeavoring to ruin him in 
business and his domestic relations by procuring his 
discharge by Bowen, and making indecent proposals 
to Mrs. Tilton. His charge at this time had not grown 
to adultery, but was limited to improper solicitation 
on the part of Mr. Beecher. Mr. Tilton carefully de- 
clared that Mrs. Tilton was innocent of any crime, and 
spoke of her as a pure woman who had been insulted 
by her pastor. When Mrs. Woodhull published her 
infamous story in November, 1872, Tilton, though he 
did not at once deny her charges in print, did so ver- 
bally to friends. On the 18th of November, he said 
to the Rev. Mr Halliday, according to that gentleman's 
testimony, " My wife is as pure as the light," and 
denied that he had ever accused her of criminal inti- 
macy with Mr. Beecher. When his letter to a " Com- 
plaining Friend " was published in December, it was 
regarded as a virtual denial of Mrs. Woodhull's story. 
From time to time, however, he spoke of his supposed 
wrongs to friends. At last, his affairs becoming very 
bad, he changed the form of his accusation against 
Mr. Beecher, and charged him with the deliberate 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 103 

seduction of Mrs. Tilton, and with numerous acts of 
adultery with her. The evidence shows that, so far 
from endeavoring to quiet the scandal, he went about 
retailing the story of his alleged dishonor, maintaining 
during a part of this time friendly relations in public 
with the man whom he regarded as the seducer of his 
wife. Then followed the charges brought by Mr. West, 
the dropping of Mr. Til ton's name from the rolls of 
^Plymouth Church, the Congregational Council, and 
Dr. Bacon's speech which brought about the publica- 
tion by Mr. Tilton of his charges against Mr. Beecher. 



IX. 

MRS. ELIZABETH R. TILTON. 

Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton, whose name has become 
so painfully conspicuous in this unhappy scandal, is a 
native of New York. During her childhood her father 
died, and her mother removed to Brooklyn, where she 
opened a boarding-house. Elizabeth attended several 
schools, .and finally passed to the Packer Institute, 
where, at the age of eighteen, she graduated with dis- 
tinction. At school she was a favorite with her teach- 
ers and companions, and was regarded as one of the 
best scholars in the school. " She was a strangely 
earnest little brunette, that inspired the kindest re- 
gards in her teachers, and a kind of awe in her school- 
mates." Upon leaving school, she assisted her mother 
in the conduct of the house, and became a member of 
Plymouth Church. About this time she became ac- 
quainted with Theodore Tilton, then a promising young 
man and universally popular. After an acquaintance 



104 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

of a year or two, she married him. This was in 1855, 
and she was twenty-two years old. 

Mrs. Tilton became the mother of seven children, 
four of whom are now living. She was devotedly 
attached to her husband, and as she proved herself a 
good wife and mother, her married life was for many 
years a happy one. She was naturally of a religious 
temperament, and endeavored to rear her children in 
the midst of religious associations, and to surround her 
home with the same safeguards. Her husband bears 
testimony to her innate goodness and purity of char- 
acter. " I think," says he, " she certainly spends hours 
on her knees some days ; I don't suppose a day ever 
passes over Elizabeth that the sun, if he could peep 
through the windows, would not see her on her knees." 
And yet Mr. Tilton would have people believe that this 
saintly soul, whose life was one of prayer and Christian 
purity, according to his own confession, was an impure 
woman and an adulteress. 

Mrs. Tilton is " under medium height, with black 
hair and eyes, a face that is interesting, though not 
beautiful, with an expression that indicates unusual 
sensibility and sentimentality rather than intellectual 
force or refinement. Her appearance is modest, and 
her air is peculiarly sincere and confiding. Her man- 
ners are easy and natural, with a simple grace which 
is more pleasing than what passes for elegance in polite 
society. Her prevailing mood is profoundly serious, 
lit up with occasional gleams of joy, and sometimes 
breaking into a beautiful playfulness. At times, when 
her feelings are pleasantly excited, and her face glows 
with expression, she appears really handsome; at other 
times, when depressed, or wearied, or unexcited, her 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 105 

eye is lustreless, and her face is dull and unattractive. 
She is a good housekeeper, and an excellent mother, de- 
votedly fond of her children, and doing more for them 
and spending more time in reading to them and talk- 
ins: with them than most mothers. Her tastes and 
habits are domestic, sentimental, and religious, rather 
than aesthetic or literary; her reading has not been 
extensive, and her favorite pictures are valuable for 
their sentiment rather than artistic excellence or im- 
aginative power. She has had seven children, four of 
whom are living. The eldest is a daughter of more 
than ordinary maturity of mind and force of character. 
She resembles her Dither much more than the other 
children — so much that she would be recognized as his 
daughter by those who are familiar with his features. 
The two youngest children are boys. Mrs. Tilton's 
former home, on Livingston street, was once peculiarly 
attractive and charming by affection that filled its 
rooms with a climate of summer and a fragrance as of 
blooming roses ; it was tastefully furnished, graced with 
exquisite pictures, made poetic by the disposition and 
arrangement of its contents, and the ideal element visi- 
ble and palpable in every apartment. It seemed to 
realize the ideal of home." 

With Mr. Tilton's change of views the wife's dream 
of happiness vanished, and her pleasant home became 
a place of torment to her : yet she bore all bravely 
until her moral courage, her firmness, and her veracity 
gave way before her husband's resolute purpose to use 
her as an instrument of crushing Mr. Beecher. The 
torments to which she was subjected are set forth with 
fearful intensity in her own words elsewhere in these 
pages. They continued until, unable to bear them 



106 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

longer, she fled from her home on the 11th of Julj-, 
1874, and sought shelter in the family of her friends, 
Mr. and Mrs. Edward Ovington. 



THE INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE. 

The committee appointed by Mr. Beecher, with the 
approval of the Examining Committee of the church, 
to investigate the charges against him, was composed 
of the most prominent members of Plymouth Church, 
men well known in New York and Brooklyn for per- 
sonal integrity and for ability in their respective 
callings. 

Henry "VV. Sage, the Chairman, is a Deacon of Ply- 
mouth Church, and one of the Trustees of the Societv. 
He is widely known as a business man, being one of 
the most extensive lumber dealers in the country, and 
enjoying a reputation for unswerving integrity, and 
strong, practical good sense. He is regarded as one of 
the leading citizens of Brooklyn. His liberality is well 
known, and is shown by his donations of $10,000 to 
found the "Lyman Beecher Lectureship on Preaching" 
in Yale College, $300,000 to found the " Sage College 
for Women" in Cornell University, and $40,000 for the 
erection of a church in Ithaca, N. Y., his native place. 

Augustus Storrs is a member of the commission 
firm of Storrs Brothers. He is well known and highly 
respected in the business circles of both Brooklyn and 
New York. He is a member of the Board of Trustees 
of Plymouth Church, Treasurer of the Society, and a 
wealthy, kind-hearted and public-spirited citizen. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 107 

Henry M. Cleveland is a native of Connecticut, in 
which State a large part of his life was passed, and 
to which he rendered valuable service as a mem- 
ber of the State Board of Education. He has been n 
member of Plymouth Church for fourteen years, and is 
one of the Examining Committee. He is a paper mer- 
chant, and a member of the well-known house of H. C. 
Hulbert & Co. of New York. 

Horace B. Claflin is a member of the Board of 
Trustees of Plymouth Church, and has been connected 
with the Society as one of its most prominent members 
since its organization. He is well known throughout 
the commercial world as the head of the famous dry- 
goods house of H. B. Claflin & Co., the largest establish- 
ment of its kind in the world. His reputation for in- 
tegrity, business ability, and kindly courtesy is known 
to the whole country. 

John Winslow is a lawyer, and District Attorney 
for Kings county, having been appointed to that posi- 
tion by Governor Dix, and is a member of the legal 
firm of Winslow & Van Cott. He and his partner, 
Judge Van Cott, are regarded as among the foremost 
members of the Brooklyn bar. 

S. Y. White is the Treasurer of Plymouth Church, 
and one of the most active leaders in its Sunday-school 
work, He is a banker and broker, doing business in 
New York, where he is well and favorably known. 

These were the men selected by Mr. Beecher to in- 
vestigate the charges made against him. He delib- 
erately chose the most prominent members of the So- 
ciety, those most interested in establishing the truth, 
and in whose impartiality and judicial fairness he knew 
he could confide. He chose six prominent citizens of 



108 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Brooklyn, whose high characters would command the 
confidence of the public in their decision. 

The sessions of the committee were held principally 
at the residence of Mr. Augustus Storrs, in Monroe 
place, Brooklyn. 

The committee began their labors by inviting Mr. 
Tilton to appear before them and make a detailed 
statement of his charges against Mr. Beecher. Mr. 
Tilton replied as follows : 

No. 174 Livingston Street, \ 
Brooklyn, July 13, 1874. J 
To the Investigating Committee : 

Gentlemen : — When, on Friday last, I met you at your 
invitation, the appointment of your committee had not then 
been made known to the public. You sat in a private 
capacity. 

Moreover, one of your legal advisers had previously given 
me a hope that if, on my appearance before you, I would pre- 
serve a judicious reticence concerning the worst aspects of the 
case, I might thereby facilitate, through you, such a moderate 
public presentation of Mr. Beecher's offence and apology as 
would close, rather than prolong, the existing scandal. 

I rejoiced in this hope, and promptly reciprocated the kindly 
feeling which was reported to me as shared by you all toward 
myself and family. 

Accordingly, when I met you in conference, my brief state- 
ment was, in substance, the two following points: First, that 
my letter to Dr. Bacon was written, not as an act of aggression, 
but of self-defence — arising, as therein set forth, from great and 
grievous provocation by your pastor, your church, the Brook- 
lyn Council, and the ex-Moderator's criticisms on my supposed 
conduct — all uniting to defame me before the world, and to 
inflict upon me an unjust punishment for acts done by another; 
and second, that having by that letter defended myself so far 
as I thought the occasion required me to carry my reply, I felt 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 109 

unwilling to proceed further against Mr. Beecher without far- 
ther public provocation or other necessity. 

Such a necessity is now laid upon me by Mr. Beecher him- 
self, in the publication of a direct request by him to you to 
inquire officially into his character as affected by his offence 
and apology, to which I referred. 

He thus offers to me a direct challenge, not only before your 
committee, but before the public, which I hereby accept. 

I, therefore, give you notice that I shall prepare a full and 
detailed statement in accordance with the terms of your com- 
mittee's invitation to me, " to furnish such facts, as are within 
my knowledge," touching matters " which compromise the 
character of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher." 

I shall be ready to lay this before you within a week or ten 
days, or as soon thereafter as I shall find myself able to set the 
numerous facts and evidences in such strict array as that I can 
cover them, each and all, with my oath to their exact truth, 
sworn before a magistrate. 

I await the appointment of a day by you mutually con- 
venient for my presentation of this statement in person before 
your committee. 

Meanwhile I shall make public my present note to you, 
because Mr. Beecher's letter to which this is a preliminary 
response has been made public by him. With great respect, 
I am truly yours, 

Theodore Tilton. 

XL 

MR. MOULTON'S FIRST APPEARANCE. 

Mr. Francis D. Moulton, in view of the determina- 
tion of Mr. Beecher to have the charges against him 
investigated, and of Mr. Tilton to respond to the invita- 
tion of the committee, determined to endeavor to sup- 
press the investigation at the outset. He had been the 
confidential friend of both Mr. Beecher and Mr. Tilton, 



110 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

and he had conceived the idea that publicity would be 
ruinous to Mr. Beecher, notwithstanding his confessions 
to others of his belief in Beecher's innocence, and his 
written declaration to Mr. Beecher that he had nothing 
to fear from an exposure of the whole matter. For 
some purpose of his own, Mr. Moulton seems to have 
desired to keep Mr. Beecher in the position he had so 
foolishly occupied for several years past, when he had 
unwisely submitted himself to the control of the 
"mutual friend," to his own great loss and discomfort. 
Exactly what Mr. Mouiton's purpose was the reader 
will be able to judge, after reading the statements, etc., 
which are to follow. On the present occasion, Mr. 
Moulton appeared before the committee, and read the 
following paper : 

Gentlemen of the Committee : 

I appear before you, at your invitation, to make a statement 
which I have read to Mr. Tilton and Mr. Beecher, which both 
deem honorable, and in the fairness and propriety of which, so 
far as I am concerned, they both concur. The parties in this 
case are personal friends of mine, in whose behalf I have 
endeavored to act as the umpire and peacemaker for the last 
four years, with a conscientious regard for all the interests 
involved. 

I regret for your sakes the responsibility imposed on me of 
appearing here to-night. If I say anything, I must speak the 
truth. I do not believe that the simple curiosity of the world 
at large, or even of this committee, ought to be gratified 
through any recitation by me of the facts which are in my pos- 
session, necessarily in confidence, through my relations to the 
parties. The personal differences of which I am aware, as the 
chosen arbitrator, have once been settled honorably between 
the parties, and would never have been revived except on 
account of recent attacks, both in and out of Plymouth Church, 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. HI 

made upon the character of Theodore Tilton, to which he 
thought a reply necessary. If the present issue is to be settled, 
it must be, in my opinion, by the parties themselves, either 
together or separately before your committee, each taking the 
responsibility of his own utterance. As I am fully conversant 
with the facts and evidences, I shall, as between these parties, if 
necessary, deem it my duty to state the truth, in order to final 
settlement, and that the world may be well informed before pro- 
nouncing its judgment with reference to either. I therefore sug- 
gest to you that the parties first be heard; that if then you deem 
it necessary that I should appear before you, I will do so, to speak 
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I hold 
to-night, as I have held hitherto, the opinion that Mr. JBeecher 
should frankly state that he had committed an offence against 
Mr. Tilton for which it was necessary to apologize, and for which 
he did apologize in the language of the letter, part of which has 
been quoted ; that he should have stated frankly that he deemed 
it necessary for Mr. Tilton to have made the defence against Dr. 
Leonard Bacon which he did make, and that he (Mr. Beecher) 
should refuse to be a party to the reopening of this painful 
subject. If he had made this statement, he would have stated 
no more than the truth, and it would have saved him and you 
the responsibility of a further inquiry. It is better now that 
the committee should not report; and in place of a report, 
Mr. Beecher himself should make the statement which I have 
suggested ; or that if the committee does report, the report 
should be a recommendation to Mr. Beecher to make such a 
statement. 

Mr. Moulton's course was very properly treated by 
the committee as an unwarrantable interference, and 
they declined to accept his proposition, and announced 
their intention of proceeding with the investigation. 



112 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

XII. 

MR. TILTON'S SWORN STATEMENT. 

The committee having resolved to proceed with the 
investigation, Mr. Tilton, in accordance with their 
invitation, appeared before them on the 20th of July, 
and read the following communications to them : 

Gentlemen of the Committee: — In communicating to 
you the detailed statement of facts of evidences which you have 
been several days expecting at my hands, let me remind you of 
the circumstances which call this statement forth. In my recent 
letter to Dr. Bacon I alluded to an offence and an apology by 
the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. To whomsoever else this al- 
lusion scorned indefinite, to Mr. Beecher it was plain. The 
offence was committed by him ; the apology was made by him ; 
both acts were his own, and were among the most momentous 
occurrences of his life. Of all men in Plymouth Church, or in 
the world, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was the one man 
who was best informed concerning this offence and apology, and 
the one man who least needed to inquire into either. Never- 
theless, while possessing a perfect knowledge of both these acts 
done by himself, he has chosen to put on a public affectation 
of ignorance and innocence concerning them, and has conspicu- 
ously appointed a committee of six of the ablest men of 
his church, together with two attorneys, to inquire into what 
he leaves you to regard as the unaccountable mystery of this 
offence and apology, as if he had neither committed the one 
nor offered the other, but as if both were the mere figments 
of another man's imagination, thus adroitly prompting the 
public to draw the deduction that I am a person under some 
hallucination or delusion, living in a dream and forging a 
fraud. Furthermore, in order to cast over this explanation the 
delicate glamour which always lends a charm to the defence of 
a woman's honor, Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton, lately my wife, has 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 113 

been prompted away from her home to reside among Mr. 
Beecher's friends, and to co-operate with him in his ostensibly 
honest and laudable inquiry into facts concerning which she too, 
as well as he, has for years past had perfect and equal knowl- 
edge with himself. The investigation, therefore, has been pub- 
licly pressed upon me by Mr. Beecher, seconded by Mrs. Tilton, 
both of whom, in so doing, have united in assuming before the 
public the non-existence of the grave and solemn facts into 
which they have conspired to investigate for the purpose, not 
of eliciting but of denying the truth. This joint assumption 
by them, which has seemed to your committee to be in good 
faith, has naturally led you into an examination in which you 
expect to find on their part nothing but innocence and on my 
part nothing but slander. It is now my unhappy duty, from 
which I have in vain hitherto sought earnestly to be delivered, 
to give you the facts and evidences for reversing your opinion 
on this subject. In doing this painful, I may say heartrending, 
duty, the responsibility for making the grave disclosures which 
I am about to lay before you belongs, not to me, but first to 
Mr. Beecher, who has prompted you to this examination, and 
next to Mrs. Tilton, who has joined him in a conspiracy which 
cannot fail to be full of peril and wretchedness to many hearts. 
I call you to witness that in my first brief examination by your 
committee I begged and implored you not to inquire into the 
facts of this case, but rather to seek to bury them beyond all 
possible revelation. Happy for all concerned had this entreaty 
been heeded ! It is now too late. The last opportunity for 
reconciliation and settlement has passed. This investigation, 
undertaken by you in ignorance of dangers against which Mr. 
Beecher should have warned you in advance, will shortly prove 
itself, to your surprise, to have been an act of wanton and 
wicked folly, for which the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, a& its 
originator and public sponsor, will hereafter find no " space for 
repentance, though he seek it carefully and with tears." This 
desperate man must hold himself only, and not me, account- 
able for the wretchedness which these disclosures will carry to 
his own home and hearth as they have already brought to 
8 



114 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

mine. I will add that the original documents referred to in 
the ensuing sworn statement are, for the most part, in my pos- 
session ; but that the apology and a few other papers are in the 
hands of Mr. Francis D. Moulton. Truly yours, 

Theodore Tilton. 

TILTON'S SWORN STATEMENT. 

Whereas, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher has instigated the appoint- 
ment of a committee consisting of six members of his church and society 
to inquire and report upon alleged aspersions upon his character by 
Theodore Tilton ; and whereas, Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton, formerly the 
wife of Mr. Tilton, has openly deserted her home, in order to co-operate 
with Mr. Beecher in a conspiracy to overthrow the credibility and good 
repute of her late husband as a man and citizen ; therefore, Theodore 
Tilton, being thus authorized and required, and by the published demand 
made upon him by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and being now and 
hereafter released by act of Mrs. Tilton from further responsibility for 
concealment of the truth touching her relations with Mr. Beecher— there- 
fore, Theodore Tilton hereby sets forth, under solemn oath, the following 
facts and testimony : 

I. That on the second of October, 1855, at Plymouth Church, Brook- 
lyn, a marriage between Theodore Tilton and Elizabeth M. Richards 
was performed by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, which marriage, 
thirteen years afterwards, was dishonored and violated by this clergy- 
man through the criminal seduction of this wife and mother, as herein- 
after set forth. 

II. That foi a period of about fifteen years, extending both before 
and after this marriage, an intimate friendship existed between Theo- 
dore Tilton and the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. which friendship was 
cemented to such a degree that in consequence thereof the subsequent 
dishonoring by Mr. Beecher of his friend's wife was a crime of uncom- 
mon wrongfulness and perfidy. 

II T. That about nine years ago the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher began, 
and thereafter continued, a friendship with Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton, 
for whose native delicacy and extreme religious sensibility he often ex- 
pressed to her husband a high admiration ; visiting her from time to 
time for years, until the year 1870, when, for reasons hereinafter stated, 
he ceased such visits ; during which period, by many tokens and atten- 
tions, he won the affectionate love of Mrs. Tilton, whereby, after long 
moral resistance by her, and after repeated assaults by him upon her 
mind with overmastering arguments, accomplished the possession of 
her person ; maintaining with her thenceforward during the period here- 
inafter stated the relation called criminal intercourse ; this relation being 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 115 

regarded by her during that period as not criminal or morally wrong — 
such had been the power of his arguments as a clergyman to satisfy her 
religious scruples against such violation of virtue and honor. 

IY. That on the evening of October 10, 1868, or thereabouts, Mrs. 
Elizabeth R. Tilton held an interview with the Rev. Henry Ward 
Beecher, at his residence, she being then in a tender state of mind, 
owing to the recent death and burial of a young child ; and during this 
interview an act of criminal commerce took place between this pastor 
and this parishioner, the motive on her part being, as hereinbefore 
stated, not regarded by her at the time criminal or wrong ; which act 
was followed by a similar act of criminality between these same parties 
at Mr. Tilton's residence during a pastoral visit paid by Mr. Beecher to 
her on the subsequent Saturday evening, followed also by other similar 
acts on various occasions from the autumn of 1868 to the spring of 1870, 
the places being the two residences aforesaid, and occasionally other 
places to which her pastor would invite and accompany her, or at which 
he would meet her by previous appointment ; these acts of wrong being 
on her part, from first to last, not wanton or consciously wicked, but 
arising through a blinding of her moral perceptions, occasioned by the 
powerful influence exerted on her mind at that time to this end by the 
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, as her trusted religious preceptor and 
guide. 

Y. That the pastoral visits made by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher 
to Mrs. Tilton, during the year 1868, became so frequent as to excite 
comment, being in marked contrast with his known habit of making 
few pastoral calls on his parishioners, which frequency in Mrs. Tilton's 
case is shown in letters written to her husband during his absence in the 
West; these letters giving evidence that during the period of five or six 
weeks twelve different pastoral calls on Mrs. Tilton were made by the 
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, which calls became noticeably infrequent 
on Mr. Tilton's return to his home. 

YL That previous to the aforesaid criminal intimacy, one of the 
reasons which Mrs. Tilton alleged for her encouragement of such excep- 
tional attentions from the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was the fact that 
she had been much distressed with rumors against his moral purity, 
and wished to convince him that she could receive his kindness, and yet 
resist his solicitations ; and that she could inspire in him, by her purity 
and fidelity, an increased respect for the chaste dignity of womanhood. 
Previous to the autumn of 1868 she maintained with Christian firmness 
towards her pastor this position of resistance, always refusing his 
amorous pleas, which were strong and oft-repeated ; and in a letter to 
her husband, dated February 3. 1868, she wrote as follows : " To love is 
praiseworthy, but to abuse the gift is sin. Here I am strong. No 
demonstrations or fascinations could cause me to yield my womanhood." 



116 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

VII. That the first suspicion which crossed the mind of Theodore 
Tilton that the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was abusing or might abuse 
the affection and reverence which Mrs. Tilton bore towards her pastor 
was an improper caress given by Mr. Beecher to Mrs. Tilton by the 
. . . while seated by her side on the floor of his library overlooking 
engravings. Mr. Tilton a few hours afterwards asked of his wife an 
explanation of her permission of such a liberty, whereat she at first 
denied the fact, but then confessed it, and said that she had spoken 
chidingly to Mr. Beecher concerning it. On another occasion Mr. 
Tilton, after leaving his house in the early morning, returned to it in the 
forenoon, and on going to his bedchamber found the door locked, and 
when on knocking the door was opened by Mrs. Tilton, Mr. Beecher 
was seen within apparently much confused and exhibiting a flushed face. 
Mrs. Tilton afterwards made a plausible explanation, which from the 
confidence reposed in her by her husband was by him deemed satis- 
factory. 

VIII. That in the spring of 1870, on Mr. Tilton's return from a 
winter's absence, he noticed in his wife such evidences of the absorption 
of her mind in Mr. Beecher, that in a short time an estrangement took 
place between her husband and herself, in consequence of which she 
went into the country earlier than usual for a summer sojourn. After 
an absence of several weeks she voluntarily returned to her home in 
Brooklyn. On the evening of July 3, 1870, when, and then and there, 
within a few hours after her arrival, and after exacting from her husband 
a solemn promise that he would do the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher no 
harm, nor communicate to him what she was about to say, she made a 
circumstantial confession to her husband of the criminal facts hereinbe- 
fore stated, accompanied with citations from Mr. Beecher's arguments 
and reasonings with her to overcome her long-maintained scruple against 
yielding to his desires, and declaring that she had committed no wrong 
to her husband or her marriage vow, quoting, in support of this opinion, 
that her pastor had repeatedly assured her that she was spotless and 
chaste, which she believed herself to be. She further stated that her 
sexual commerce with him had never proceeded from low or vulgar 
thoughts either on her part or his, but always from pure affection and a 
high religious love. She stated, furthermore, that Mr. Beecher habit- 
ually characterized their intimacy by the term "nest-hiding," and he 
would suffer pain and sorrow if his hidden secret were ever made known. 
She said that her mind was often burdened by the deceit necessary for 
her to practice in order to prevent discovery, and that her conscience 
had many times impelled her to throw off this burden of enforced false- 
hood by making a full confession to her husband, so that she would no 
longer be living before him a perpetual lie. In particular she said that 
she had been on the point of making this confession a few months pre- 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 117 

viously, during a severe illness, when she feared she might die. She 
affirmed also that Mr. Beecher had assured her repeatedly that he loved 
her better than he had ever loved any other woman, and she felt justified 
before God in her intimacy with him, save the necessary deceit which 
accompanied it, and at which she frequently suffered in her mind. 

IX. That after the above-named confession by Mrs. Elizabeth R. 
Tilton she returned to the country to await such action by her husband 
as he might see fit to take, whereupon, after many considerations, the 
chief of which was that she had not voluntarily gone astray, but had 
been artfully misled through religious reverence for the Rev. Henry 
Ward Beecher as her spiritual guide, together, also, from a desire to 
protect the family from open shame, Mr. Tilton condoned the wrong, 
and he addressed to his wife such letters of affection, tenderness and 
respect as he felt would restore her wounded spirit, and which did par- 
tially produce that result. 

X. That in December, 1870, differences arose between Theodore 
Tilton and Henry C. Bowen which were augmented by the Rev. Henry 
Ward Beecher and Mrs. Beecher, in consequence whereof and at the 
wish of Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton expressed iti writing in a paper put 
into the hands of Francis D. Moulton, with a view to procure a har- 
monious interview between Mr. Tilton and Mr. Beecher. such an 
interview was arranged and carried out by Mr. Moulton at his then 
residence on Clinton street, Mr. Beecher and Mr. Tilton meeting and 
speaking then and there for the first time since Mrs. Tilton's confession 
of six months before. The paper in Mr. Moulton's hands was a state- 
ment by Mrs. Tilton of the substance of the confession which she had 
before made, and of her wish and prayer for reconciliation and peace 
between her pastor and her husband. This paper furnished to Mr. 
Beecher the first knowledge which he had as yet received that Mrs. 
Tilton had made such a confession. At this interview between Mr. 
Beecher and Mr. Tilton permission was sought by Mr. Beecher to con- 
sult with Mrs. Tilton on that same evening. This permission being 
granted, Mr. Beecher departed from Mr. Moulton's house, and in about 
half an hour returned thither, expressing his remorse and shame, and 
declaring that his life and work seemed brought to a sudden end. 
Later in the same evening Mr. Tilton, on returning to his house, found 
his wife weeping and in great distress, saying that what she had meant 
for peace had only given pain and anguish; that Mr. Beecher had just 
called on her, declaring that she had slain him and that he would 
probably be tried before a council of ministers unless she would give 
him a written paper for his protection. Whereupon she said he dic- 
tated to her, and she copied in her own handwriting, a suitable paper for 
him to use to clear himself before a council of ministers. Mrs. Tilton 
having kept no copy of this paper, her husband asked her to make a 



118 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

distinct statement in writing of her design and meaning in giving it, 
whereupon she wrote as follows : 

December 30, 1870 — Midnight. 
My Dear Husband : — I desire to leave with you, before going to bed, 
a statement that Mr. Henry Ward Beecher called upon me this evening, 
and asked me if I would defend him against any accusation in a Council 
of Ministers ; and I replied solemnly, that I would, in case the accuser 
was any other person than my husband. He (H. W. B.) dictated a 
letter, which I copied as my own, to be used by him as against any 
other accuser except my husband. This letter was designed to vindicate 
Mr. Beecher against all other persons save only yourself. I was ready 
to give him this letter because he said with pain that my letter in your 
hands addressed to him, dated December 29, " had struck him dead, and 
ended his usefulness." You and I are pledged to do our best to avoid 
publicity. God grant a speedy end to all further anxieties. 

Affectionately, Elizabeth. 

On the next day, namely, December 31, 1870, Mr. Moulton, on being 
informed by Mr. Tilton of the above-named transaction by Mr. Beecher, 
called on him (Mr. Beecher) at his residence, and told him that a recon- 
ciliation seemed suddenly made impossible by Mr. Beecher's nefarious 
act in procuring the letter which Mrs. Tilton had thus been improperly 
persuaded to make falsely. Mr. Beecher promptly, through Mr. Moul- 
ton, returned the letter to Mr. Tilton, with an expression of shame and 
sorrow for having procured it in the manner he did. The letter was as 

follows : 

December 30, 1870. 
Wearied with importunity and weakened by sickness I gave a letter 
implicating my friend Henry Ward Beecher under the assurances that 
that would remove all difficulties between ine and my husband. That 
letter I now revoke. I was persuaded to it— almost forced — when I was 
in a weakened state of mind. I regret it, and recall all its statements. 

E. R. Tilton. 

I desire to say explicitly Mr. Beecher has never offered any improper 
solicitation, but has always treated me in a manner becoming a Chris- 
tian and a gentleman. Elizabeth R. Tilton. 

At the time of Mr. Beecher's returning the above document to Mr. 
Tilton through Mr. Moulton. Mr. Beecher requested Mr. Moulton to 
call at his residence, in Columbia street, on the next day, which he did 
on the evening of January 1. 1871. A long interview then ensued, in 
which Mr. Beecher expressed to Mr. Moulton great contrition and re- 
morse for his previous criminality with Mrs. Tilton; taking to himself 
shame for having misused his sacred office as a clergyman to corrupt 
her mind, expressing a determination to kill himself in case of exposure, 
and begging Mr. Moulton to take a pen and receive from his (Mr. 
Beecher's) lips an apology to be conveyed to Mr. Tilton, in the hope 
that such an appeal would secure Mr. Tilton's forgiveness. The apology 
which Mr. Beecher dictated to Mr. Moulton was as follows : 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. H9 



[In trust with F. D. Moulton.] 

My Dear Friend Moulton : — I ask through you Theodore Tilton's 
forgiveness, and I humble myself before him as I do before my God. 
He would have been a better man in my circumstances than I have 
been. I can ask nothing, except that he will remember all the other 
breasts that would ache. I will not plead for myself. I even wish that 
I were dead. But others must live to suffer. I will die before any one 
but myself shall be inculpated. All my thoughts are running out 
towards my friends, and toward the poor child lying there, and praying 
with her folded hands. She is guiltless, sinned against, bearing the 
transgression of another. Her forgiveness I have. I humbly pray to 
God to put it into the heart of her husband to forgive me. I have 
trusted this to Moulton, in confidence. H. W. Beecher. 

In the above document, the last sentence and the signature are in the 
handwriting of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 

XI. That Mrs. Tilton wrote the following letter to a friend : 

174 Livingston Street, ) 

Brooklyn, January 5, 1871. j 
Dear Friend : — A cruel conspiracy has been formed against my hus- 
band, in which my mother and Mrs. Beecher have been the chief actors. 
. . . Yours truly, Elizabeth R. Tilton. 

XII. That in the following month Mr. Moulton, wishing to bind Mr. 
Tilton and Mr. Beecher by mutual expressions of a good spirit, elicited 
from them the following correspondence : 

MR. TILTON TO MR. MOULTON. 

Brooklyn, February 7. 1871. 

My Dear Friend : — In several conversations with you, you have 
asked about my feelings toward Mr. Beecher, and yesterday you said the 
time had come when you would like to receive from me an expression 
of this kind in writing. I say, therefore, very cheerfully, that notwith- 
standing the great suffering which he has caused to Elizabeth and 
myself, I bear him no malice, shall do him no wrong, shall discounte- 
nance every project (by whomsoever proposed) for any exposure of his 
secret to the public, and (if I know myself at all) shall endeavor to act 
to Mr. Beecher as I would have him in similar circumstances act toward 
me. I ought to add that your own good offices in this case have led me 
to a higher moral feeling than I might otherwise have reached. Ever 
yours, affectionately, Theodore. 

To Frank Moulton. 

On the same day Mr. Beecher wrote to Mr. Moulton the following: 

MR. BEECHER TO MR. MOULTON. 

February 7, 1871. 
My Dear Friend Moulton : — I am glad to send you a book, etc. 

Many, many friends has God raised up to me, but to no one of them 
has he ever given the opportunity and the wisdom so to serve me as 



120 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

you have. You have also proved Theodore's friend and Elizabeth's. 
Does God look down from heaven on three unhappier creatures that 
more need a friend than these ? Is it not an intimation of God's intent 
of mercy to all that each one of these lias in you a tried and proved 
friend ? But only in you are we thus united. Would to God, who 
orders all hearts, that by his kind mediation Theodore, Elizabeth, and 
I could be made friends again. Theodore will have the hardest task in 
such a case; but lias lie not proved himself capable of the noblest 
tilings? I wonder if Elizabeth knows how generously he has carried 
himself toward me. Of course, I can never speak with her again with- 
out his permission, and I do not know, even then, it would be best. . . . 

Mr. Moulton on the same day asked Mr. Tilton if he would permit 
Mr. Beecher to address a letter to Mrs. Tilton, and Mr. Tilton replied 
in the affirmative, whereupon Mr. Beecher wrote as follows : 

MR. BEECHER TO MRS. TILTON. 

Brooklyn, February 7, 1871. 
My Dear Mrs. Tilton :— When I saw you last I did not expect ever 
to see you again, or to he alive many days. God was kinder to me than 
were my own thoughts. The friend whom God sent to me. Mr. Moul- 
ton. has proved, above all friends that I ever had, able and willing to 
help me in this terrible emergency of my life. His hand it was that 
tied up the storm that was ready to hurst on our heads. You have no 
friend (Theodore excepted) who has it in his power to serve you so 
vitally, and who will do it with such delicacy and honor. It does my 
sore heart good to see in Mr. Moulton an unfeigned respect and honor 
for you. It would kill me if 1 thought otherwise. He will be as true a 
friend to your honor and happiness as a brother could be to a sister's. 
In him we have a common ground. You and 1 may meet in him. The 
past is ended. But is there no future ? No wiser, higher, holier future? 
May not this friend stand as a priest in the new sanctuary of reconcilia- 
tion and mediate and bless Theodore and my most unhappy self? Do 
not let my earnestness fail of its end. You believe in my judgment. 
I have put myself wholly and gladly in Moulton's hand, and there I 
must meet you. This is sent, with Theodore's consent, but he has not 
read it. Will you return it to me by his own hand ? 1 am very earnest 
in this wish for all our sakes, as such a letter ought not to be subject to 
even a chance of miscarriage. Your unhappy friend, 

H. W. Beecher. 

XIII. That about a year after Mrs. Til ton's confession her mind 
remained in the fixed opinion that her criminal relations with Mr. 
Beecher had not been morally wrong, so strongly had he impressed her 
to the contrary ; but at length a change took place in her convictions 
on this subject, as noted in the following letter addressed by her to her 
husband : 

MRS. TILTON TO MR. TILTON". 

Schoharie. June 29, 1871. 
My Dear Theodore : — To-day through the ministry of Catharine 
Gaunt, a character of fiction, my eyes have been opened for the first 
time in my experience, so that I see clearly my sin. It was when I 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 121 

knew that 1 was loved, to suffer it to grow to a passion. A virtuous 
woman should check instantly an absorbing love. But it appeared to 
me in such false light. That the love I felt and received could harm no 
one, not even you. I have believed unfalteringly until four o'clock this 
afternoon, when the heavenly vision dawned upon me. I see now, as 
never before, the wrong I have dune you. and hasten immediately to 
ask your pardon, with a penitence so sincere that henceforth (if reason 
remains) you may trust me implicitly. Oh ! my dear Theodore, though 
your opinions are not restful or congenial to my soul, yet my own 
integrity and purity are a sacred and holy thing to me. Bless God, 
with me, for Catharine Gaunt, and for ali the sure leadings of an all-wise 
and loving Providence. Yes ; now I feel quite prepared to renew my 
marriage vow with you, to keep it as the Saviour requireth. who looketh 
at the eye and the heart. Never before could I say this. When you 
yearn toward me with true feeling, be assured of the tried, purified, and 
restored love of Elizabeth. 

Mrs. Tilton followed the above letter with these : 

MRS. TILTOX TO MR. TILTON. 

July 4, 1871, 
0. my dear husband, may you never need the discipline of being 
misled by a good woman, as I was by a good man. 

[Xo Date.] 

I would mourn greatly if my life was to be made known to father. 
His head would be bowed indeed to the grave. 

[Xo Date.] 

Do not think my ill health is on account of my sin and its discovery. 
My sins and life-record I have carried to my Saviour. No ; my prostra- 
tion is owing to the suffering I have caused you. 

XIY. That about one year after Mrs. Tilton's confession, and about 
a halt year after Mr. Beecher's confirmation of the same, Mrs. Y. C. 
Woodhull, then a total stranger to Mr. Tilton. save that he had been 
presented to her in a company of friends, a few days previous, wrote in 
the World. Monday. May 22. 1811, the following statement, namely: 

T know of one man. a public teacher of eminence, who lives in concu- 
binage with the wife of another public teacher of almost equal eminence. 
All three concur in denouncing: offences against morality. I shall make 
it my business to analyze some of these lives. 

Nkw York, May 20* 1871. Yictoria C. Woodhull. 

On the day of the publication of the above card in the World, Mr. 
Tiiton received from Mrs. Woodhull a request to call on imperative 
business at her office ; and. on going thither, a copy of the above card 
was put into his hand by T Mrs. Woodhull. who said that " the parties 
referred to therein were the Rev. Henry "Ward Beecher and the wife of 
Theodore Tilton." Following this announcement Mrs. Woodhull de- 
tailed to Mr. Tilton. with vehement speech, the wicked and injurious 
story which she published in the year following. Meanwhile. Mr. Tilton, 
desiring to guard against any possible temptation to Mrs. Woodhull to 



122 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

publish the grossly distorted version which she gave to Mr. Tilton (and 
which she afterwards attributed to him), he sought by many personal 
services and kindly attentions to influence her to such a good- will to- 
wards himself and family as would remove all disposition or desire in 
her to afflict him with such a publication. Mr. Tilton's efforts and 
association with Mrs. Woodhull ceased in April, 1872, and six months 
afterwards, namely, November 2, 1872, she published the scandal which 
he had labored to suppress. 

XV. That on the third day thereafter the Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, 
of Elmira, N. Y., wrote as follows : 

Elmira. November 5, 1872. 
Mrs. AVoodhull only carries out Henry's philosophy, against which I 
recorded my protest twenty years ago. 

XY1. That in May, 1873, the publication by one of Mr. Beecher's 
partners of a tripartite covenant between II. C. Bowen, H. W. Beecher, 
and Theodore Tilton led the press of the country to charge that Mr. 
Tilton had committed against Mr. Beecher some heinous wrong, which 
Mr. Beecher had pardoned ; whereas the truth was the reverse. To 
remedy this false public impression, Mr. Moulton requested Mr. Beecher 
to prepare a suitable card, relieving Mr. Tilton of this injustice. In 
answer to this request Mr. Beecher pleaded hie embarrassments, which 
prevented his saying anything without bringing himself under suspicion. 
Mr. Tilton then proposed to prepare a card of his own, containing a few 
lines from the recently quoted apology, for the purpose of showing that 
Mr. Beecher, instead of having had occasion to forgive Mr. Tilton, had 
had occasion to be forgiven by him. Mr. Beecher then wrote a letter 
to Mr. Moulton, which, on being shown to Mr. Tilton, was successful 
in appealing to Mr. Tilton's feelings. Mr. Beecher said in it, under date 
of Sunday morning, June 1, 1873 : 

MR. BEECHER TO MR. MOULTON. 

My Dear Frank: — I am determined to make no more resistance. 
Theodore's temperament is such that the future, even if temporarily 
earned, would be absolutely worthless, and rendering me liable at any 
hour of the day to be obliged to stultify all the devices by which we 
saved ourselves. It is only fair that he should know that the publica- 
tion of the card which he proposes would leave him worse off than be- 
fore. The agreement (viz., the "tripartite covenant ") was made after 
my letter through you to him (viz.. the " apology ") was written. He 
had had it a year. He had condoned his wife's fault. He had enjoined 
upon me. with the utmost earnestness and solemnity, not to betray his 
wife, nor leave his children to a blight. . . . With such a man as T. T., 
there is no possible salvation for any that depend upon him. With a 
strong nature, he does not know how to govern it. . . . There is no use 
in trying further. I have a strong feelimr upon me, and it brings great 
peace, that I am spending my last Sunday, and preaching my last 
sermon. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 123 

The hopelessness of spirit which the foregoing letter portrayed on 
the part of its writer led Mr. Tilton to reconsider the question of de- 
fending himself at the cost of producing misery to Mr. Beecher ; which 
determination by Mr. Tilton to allow the prevailing calumnies against 
himself to go unanswered was further strengthened by the following 
note received by him two days thereafter from the office editor of Mr. 
Beecher's journal : 

OLIVER JOHNSON TO THEODORE TILTON. 

128 East Twelfth Street, Junt 4, 1873. 
My Dear Theodore -.—May I tell you frankly that when I saw you 
last, you did not seem to me to be the noble young man who inspired 
my warm affection so many years ago. You were yielding to an act 
which I could not help thinking would be dishonorable and perfidious, 
and, although it is easy for me to make every allowance for the circum. 
stances that had wrought you to such a frenzy, I was dreadfully shocked. 
My dear Theodore, let me. as an old friend, whose heart is wrung by 
your terrible suffering and sorrow, tell you that you were then acting 
ignobly, and that you can never have true peace of mind till you conquer 
yourself and dismiss all purpose and thought of injuring the man who 
has wronged you. Of all the promises our lips can frame, none are so 
sacred as those we make to those who have injured us, and whom we 
have professed to forgive; and they are sacred just in proportion as 
their violation would work injury to those to whom they are made. 
You cannot paint too blackly the wrongs you have suffered. On that 
point I make no plea in abatement, but I beg you to remember that 
nothing can change the law which makes forgiveness noble and godlike. 
I have prayed for you night and day, with strong crying and tears, be- 
seeching God to restrain you from wronging yourself by violating yo'ur 
solemn engagements. To-night I am happy in the thought that you 
have been preserved from committing the act which 1 so much dreaded. 

In a letter written by Mr. Beecher, in order to be shown to Mr. Tilton, 
Mr. Beecher spoke as follows : 

MR. BEECHER TO MR. MOULTON. 

No man can see the difficulties that environ me unless he stands 
where I do. To say that I have a church on my hands is simple 
enough, but to have the hundreds and thousands of men pressing me, 
each one with his keen suspicion, or anxiety, or zeal, to see the tenden- 
cies which, if not stopped, would break out into a ruinous defence of me ; 
to stop them without seeming to do it ; to prevent any one questioning 
me ; to meet and allay prejudices against T., which had their beginning 
years before ; to keep serene, as if I was not alarmed or disturbed ; to 
be cheerful at home and among friends when I was suffering the tor- 
ments of the damned ; to pass sleepless nights often, and yet to come 
up fresh and fair for Sunday — all this may be talked about, but the real 
thing cannot be understood from the outside, nor its wearing and grind- 
ing on the nervous system. 

In still another letter, written for the same purpose as the above, 
Mr. Beecher said : 



124 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 



MR. BEECHER TO MR. MOULTON. 

If ray destruction would place him (Mr. Tilton) all right, that shall 
not stand in the way ; I am willing- to step down and out. No one can 
offer more than that. That I do offer. Sacrifice rae without hesitation, 
if you can clearly see your way to his safety and happiness thereby. 
In one point of view I could desire the sacrifice on my part. Nothing- 
can possibly be so bad as the power of great darkness in which I spend 
much of my time. I look upon death as sweeter far than any friend I 
have in the world. Life would be pleasant if I could see that rebuilt 
which is shattered. But to live on the sharp and ragged edge of 
anxiety, remorse, fear, despair, and yet to pat on an appearance of 
serenity and happiness, cannot be endured much longer. I am well 
nigh discouraged. If you cease to trust me, to love ine, 1 am alone; I 
do not know any person in the world to whom I could go. 

Mr. Tilton yielded to the above-quoted and other similar letters, and 
made no defence of himself against the public odium which attached to 
him unjustly. 

XVI. That the marriage union between Mr. and Mrs. Tilton, until 
broken by Mr. Beecher, was more than common harmony, affection, 
and mutual respect. Their house and household were regarded for 
years, by all their guests, as an ideal home. As evidence of the feeling 
and spirit which this wife entertained for her husband, up to the time 
of her corruption by Mr. Beecher, the following letters by Mrs. Tilton, 
written only a few months before her loss of honor, will testify : 

MRS. TILTON TO MR. TILTON. 

Tuesday Morning, January 28, 1868. 
My Beloved: — Don't you know the peculiar phase of Christ's char- 
acter as a lover is so precious to me because of my consecration and 
devotion to you ? I learn to love you from my love to him. I have 
learned to love him from loving you. I couple you with him. Nor do 
I feel it one whit irreverent. And as every day I adorn myself con- 
sciously, as a bride to meet her bridegroom, so in like manner I lift 
imploring hands that my soul's love may be prepared. I, with the little 
girls, after you left us, with overflowing- eyes and hearts, consecrated 
ourselves to our work and to you. My waking thoughts last night 
were of you. My rising thoughts this morning were of you. I bless 
you; I honor you; I love you. God sustain us and help us both to 
keep our vows. 

MRS. TILTON TO MR. TILTON. 

Saturday Evening, February 1, 1868. 
0, well I know, as far as I am capable, I love you. Now to keep this 
fire high and generous is the ideal before me. I am only perfectly con- 
tented and restful when you are with me. These latter months I have 
thought, looked, and yearned for the hour when you would be at home 
with longings unutterable. 



THE BKOOKLYK SCANDAL. 125 

MRS. TILTOX TO MR. TILTOST. 

Monday, February 3, 1868 — 9 o'clock a. m. 
What may I bring to my beloved, this bright morning ? A large, 
throbbing heart, full of love, single in its aim and purpose to bless and 
cheer him ? Is it acceptable, sweet one ? 

MRS. TILTON TO MR. TILTOX. 

Monday Morning, February 24, 1868. 
Do you wonder that I couple your love, your presence and relation to 
me with the Saviour's ? I lift you up sacredly and keep you in that 
exalted and holy place where I reverence, respect and love with the fer- 
vency of my whole being. Whatever capacity I have I offer it to you. 
The closing lines of your letter are these words : " I shall hardly venture 
again upon a great friendship — your love shall be enough for the 
remaining days." That word " enough " seems a stoicism on which you 
have resolved to live your life; but I pray God he will supply you with 
friendships pure and with wifely love, which your great heart demands, 
withholding not himself as the chief love, which consumeth not though 
it burn, and whose effects are alwa3 T s perfect rest and peace. Again, in 
one of your letters you close with " Faithfully yours." That word 
"faithful" means a great deal. Yes, darling. I "believe it. trust it, and 
give you the same surety with regard to myself. I am faithful to you, 
have been always, and shall forever be, world without end. Call not 
this assurance impious ; there are some things we know. Blessed be 
God! 

MRS. TrLTON TO MR. TILTON. 

Home, February 29, 1868 — Saturday Evening. 
Ah, did ever man ever love so grandly as my beloved ? Other friend- 
ships, public affairs, all " fall to nought" when I come to you. Though 
you are in Decorah, to-night, yet 1 have felt your love, and am very 
grateful for it. I had not received a line since Monday, and was so 
hungry and lonesome that 1 took out all your letters and indulged my- 
self as at a feast, but without satiety. And now I long to pour out into 
your heart, of my abundance. T am conscious of three jets to the 
fountain of my soul — to the Great Lover and yourself — to whom as one 
I am eternally wedded ; my children ; and the dear friends who trust and 
love me. I do not want another long separation. While we are in the 
flesh, let us abide together. 

MRS. TILTOX TO MR. TILTON. 

Wednesday Morn, March. 1868. 
0, how almost perfectly could I minister to you this winter, my heart 
glows so perpetually. I am conscious of great inward awakening toward 
you. If I live, I shall teach my children to begin their loves where now 
I am. I cannot conceive of anything more delicious than a life conse- 
crated to a faithful love. I insist that I miss you more than you do me, 
but soon I shall see my beloved. Your Own Dear Wife. 

In addition to the above many other letters by Mrs. Tilton to her 
husband prior to her corruption by Mr. Beecher served to show that a 
Christian wife, loving her husband to the extreme degree above set 
forth, could only have been swerved from the path of rectitude by artful 



126 THE TKUE HISTORY OF 

and powerful persuasions, clothed in the phrases of religion and enforced 
by strong appeals from her chief Christian teacher and guide. 

XVIII. That the story purporting to explain Mr. Beecher's apology 
as having been written because he had offended Mr. Tilton by engaging 
his wife in the project of a separation from her husband is false, as will 
be seen by the following letter written only three days after the date of 
the apology ■ 

MRS. TILTON TO MR. MOULTON. 

174 Livingston Street, Brooklyn, January 4, 1871. 
Mr. Francis D. Moulton : 

My Dear Friend: — In regard to your question whether I have ever 
sought a separation from my husband, I indignantly deny that such was 
ever the fact, as I have denied it a hundred times before. The story 
that I wanted a separation was a deliberate falsehood, coined by my poor 
mother, who said she would bear the responsibility of this and other 
statements she might make, and communicated to my husband's enemy, 
Mrs. II. W. Beecher. and by her communicated to Mr. Bowen. I feel 
outraged by the whole proceeding, and am now suffering in consequence 
more than I am able to bear. I am yours very truly, 

Elizabeth It. Tilton. 

XIX. That during the first week in January, 1S71, a few days after 
the apology was written, Mr. Beecher communicated to Mr. Tilton, 
through Mr. Moulton, an earnest wish that he (Mr. Tilton) would take 
his family to Europe and reside there for a term of years at Mr. 
Beecher's expense. Similar offers have been since repeated by Mr. 
Beecher tc Mr. Tilton through the same channel. A message of kin- 
dred tenor was brought from Mr. Beecher to Mr. Tilton last summer by 
Mr. F. B. Carpenter as will appear from the following affidavit : 

AFFIDAVIT OF F. B. CARPENTER. 

Homer, N. Y., July 18, 1874. 

On Sunday. June 1, 1873, two days after the surreptitious publication 
of the tripartite covenant between IT. W. Beecher. II . C. Bowen, and 
Theodore Tilton, I walked with Mr. Beecher from Plymouth Church to 
the residence of F. D. Moulton, ir Remsen street. On the way to Mr. 
Moulton's house Mr. Beecher said to me that if Mr. Tilton would stand 
by him he would share his fame, his fortune, and everything he pos- 
sessed with him (Tilton). Francis B. Carpenter. 

Sworn to and subscribed before me this eighteenth day of July, 1874. 

William T. Hicok, Notary Public. 

Mr. Carpenter, in communicating to Mr. Tilton the above affidavit, 
says in a letter accompanying it, " 1 have no hesitation in giving you 
the statement, as I understood at the time that it was for me to repeat 
in substance tc you. and I did so repeat it. It was at this interview 
Mr. Beecher spoke to me of his apology to you." The charge that Mr. 
Tilton ever attempted to levy blackmail on Mr. Beecher is false ; on the 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 127 

contrary, Mr. Tilton has always resented every attempt by Mr. Beecher 
to put him under pecuniary obligation. 

XX. Not long after the scandal became public, Mrs. Tilton wrote on 
a slip of paper, and left on her husband's writing-desk, the following 
words : ''Now that the exposure has come, my whole nature revolts to 
join with you or standing with you." Through the influence of Mr. 
Beecher's friends, the opinion has long been diligently propagated that 
the scandal was due to Mr. Tilton, and that the alleged facts were 
malicious inventions by him to revenge himself for supposed and imag- 
inary wrongs done to him by Mr. Beecher. Many words were spoken 
from time to time by Mrs. Tilton to the praise and eulogy of Mr. 
Beecher, which being extensively quoted through his congregation, 
heightened the impression that Mr. Tilton was Mr. Beecher's slanderer, 
Mrs. Tilton being herself the authority for the statement. In this way 
Mrs. Tilton and one of her relatives have been the chief causes of the 
great difficulty of suppressing the scandal. They have had a habit of 
saying, " Mr Tilton believes such and such things," and their naming 
of these things by way of denial has been a mischievous way of circulat- 
ing them broadcast. In this way Mr. Tilton has been made to appear a 
defamer, whereas he has made every effort in his power to suppress the 
injurious tales which he has been charged with propagating. On all 
occasions he has systematically referred to his wife in terms favorable 
to her character. Further, Mr. Tilton would not have communicated to 
the committee the facts contained in this statement, except for the 
perverse course of the Rev. Henry "Ward Beecher and Mrs. Elizabeth 
R. Tilton to degrade and destroy him in the public estimation. 

XXI. That one evening, about two weeks after the publication of Mr. 
Tilton's letter to Dr. Bacon, Mrs. Tilton, on coming home at a late hour, 
informed her husband that she had been visited at a friend's house by a 
committee of investigation, and had given sweeping evidence acquitting 
Mr. Beecher of every charge. This was the -first intimation that Mr. 
Tilton received that -any such committee was then in existence. Fur- 
thermore, Mrs. Tilton stated that she had done this by advice of a lawyer, 
whom Mr. Beecher had sent to her, and who, in advance of her appear- 
ing before the committee, arranged with her the questions and answers 
which were to constitute her testimony in Mr. Beecher's behalf. On 
the next day, after giving this untrue testimony before the committee, 
she spent many hours of extreme suffering from pangs of conscience at 
having testified falsely. She expressed to her husband the hope that 
God would forgive her perjury, but that the motive was to save Mr. 
Beecher and her husband, and also to remove all reproach from the 
cause of religion. She also expressed similar contrition to one of her 
intimate friends. 

XXII. Finally, that in additien to the foregoing facts and evidences, 



128 THE TRUE HISTORY OE 

other confirmations could be adduced if needed to prove the following 
recapitulated statement : namely, that the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher 
as pastor and friend of Mr. Tilton and family, trespassed upon the 
sanctity of friendship and hospitality in a long endeavor to seduce Mrs. 
Elizabeth R. Tilton ; that by the artful use of his priestly authority with 
her, she being his pupil in religion, he accomplished this seduction ; that 
for a period of a year and a half, or thereabout, he maintained criminal 
intercourse with her, overcoming her previous modest scruples against 
such conduct by investing it with a false justification as sanctioned by 
love and religion; that he then participated in a conspiracy to degrade 
Theodore Tilton before the public, by loss of place, business and repute ; 
that he abused Mr. Tilton's forgiveness and pledge of protection by 
thereafter authorizing a series of measures by Plymouth Church having 
for their object the putting of a stigma upon Mr. Tilton before the 
church, and also before an ecclesiastical council, insomuch that the 
moderator of that council, interpreting these acts by Mr. Beecher and 
his church, declared publicly that they showed Mr. Beecher to be the 
most magnanimous of men, and Mr. Tilton to be a knave and dog ; that 
when Mr. Tilton thereafter, not in malice, but for self-protection, wrote 
a letter to Dr. Bacon, alluding therein to an offence and apology by the 
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, he (Mr. Beecher) defiantly appointed a 
committee of his church members to inquire into the injury done him 
by Mr. Tilton by the aforesaid allusion, and implying that he (Mr. 
Beecher) had never been the author of such offence and apology, and 
that Mr. Tilton was a slanderer ; that to make this inquiry bear griev- 
ously against Mr. Tilton, he (Mr. Beecher) previously connived with 
Mrs. E. R. Tilton to give false testimony in his (Mr. Beecher's) behalf; 
that Mr. Beecher's course towards Mr. Tilton and family has at last 
resulted in the open destruction of Mr. Tilton's household and home, 
and in the desolation of his heart and life. Theodore Tilton. 

Sworn to before me, this twentieth day of July, 1874. 

Theo. Burgmyer, Notary Public. 

Gentlemen of the Committee : — Having laid before you 
the above sworn statement, which I have purposely restricted 
to relations of Mr. Beecher with Mrs. Tilton only, and with no 
other person or persons, I wish to add an explanation due to your- 
selves. In the Golden Age, lately edited by me, a suggestion 
was made, not with my knowledge or consent, that your com- 
mittee, in order to be justly constituted, should comprise, in 
addition to the six members appointed by Mr. Beecher, six 
others appointed by myself. To no such proposal would I 
have consented, for I have never wanted any tribunal whatever 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 129 

for the investigation of this subject. Neither your committee, 
as at present constituted, nor an enlarged committee on the plan 
just mentioned, nor any other committee of any kind, could in 
and of itself have persuaded or compelled me to lay before you 
the facts contained in the preceding statement. Distinctly be it 
understood that these facts have not been evoked by your com- 
mittee because of any authority which I recognize in you as a 
tribunal of inquiry. Nor would they have been yielded up to 
any other committee or board of reference, however constituted 
(except a court of law) ; but, on the contrary, I have divulged 
the above statement solely because of the openly published de- 
mand for it made directly to me by the Rev. Henry Ward 
Beecher, aided and abetted by Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton. These 
two parties — these alone, and not your committee — have by 
their action prevailed with me. Xo other authorities or influ- 
ences (except a court of law) could have been powerful enough 
to have extorted from me the above disclosure. For the sake 
of one of these parties gladly would I have continued to hide 
these facts in the future as I have incessantly striven to do in 
the past. But, by the joint action of Mr. Beecher and Mrs. 
Tilton, I can withhold the truth only at the price of perpetual 
infamy to my name in addition to the penalty which I already 
suffer in the destruction of a home once as pleasant as any in 
which you yourselves dwell. Respectfully, 

Theodoee Tilton. 

It was agreed between Mr. Tilton and the committee that 
these statements should not be made public at that time. On 
the afternoon of the 21st of July, however, the Brooklyn Argus 
published the statement, This publication was regarded at first 
as a breach of faith on the part of Mr. Tilton, but it appeared 
subsequently that Mr. Maverick, editor of the Argus, who had 
assisted Mr. Tilton in copying his statement, had published it 
on his own responsibility. Mr. Maverick's assumption of the 
responsibility, however, did not clear Mr. Tilton in the public 
estimation of having been concerned in the publication of his 
direct testimony. 
9 



130 THE TKUE HISTORY OF 

The committee, in view of this publication, decided to print 
his cross-examination, in order that the public might have his 
whole story. This testimony was published by the committee 
on the 25th of July. 

XIII. 
TILTON'S CROSS-EXAMINATION. 

MR. SAGE'S LETTER. 

Mr. Tilton's direct testimony having been published with- 
out the knowledge or consent of the Committee of Investiga- 
tion, and fragmentary and inaccurate reports of his testimony 
under cross-examination having been published by means un- 
known to the committee and without its consent, whereby it is 
said that Mr. Tilton feels that injustice has been done to him, 
it is believed that in fairness to all parties the whole of Mr. 
Tilton's testimony should be made public at once. 

H. W. Sage, Chairman. 

Brooklyn, July 25, 1874. 

THE CROSS-EXAMINATION. 

Brooklyn, July 20, 1874. 

The committee met at eight o'clock. All the members were 
present. Mr. Tilton was present with a written statement. A 
preliminary conversation took place between the committee and 
Mr. Tilton as to the wisdom of publishing his statement and in 
regard to his willingness to submit to a cross-examination. He 
claimed that, while they had a right to make such use as they 
pleased of their copy of said statement, he had the same right 
with respect to his copy, and expressed his willingness to sub- 
mit to such cross-examination, but requested that he might not 
be interrupted until he had read the statement through. He 
then read the statement. 

After the reading of the statement another brief conversation 
ensued on the subject of its publication, the committee suggest- 
ing that i± vwould be wise to postpone such publication until 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 131 

after all the testimony should be heard, and Mr. Tilton declin- 
ing to be restricted in the matter. The cross-examination of 
Mr. Tilton then proceeded : 

General Tracy — Are you able to give the date of the transaction 
which 3'ou say you witnessed at Mr. Beecher's house at the time of the 
examination of the engraving ? A. I cannot state the date. 

Q. At the time you received the information you speak of from your 
wife you were the editor of the Independent and of the Brooklyn Union, 
I believe ? A. I was. 

Q. Did your wife continue to attend Plymouth Church after that in- 
formation ? A. Yes, sir ; that was in the summer time ; she went into 
the country and was absent a long time ; she has always continued to 
attend once or twice a year ; she is a member of Plymouth Church. 

Q. Did she attend regularly after returning from the country ? ' A. 
No, sir ; she attended occasionally for communion service, and would 
steal in quietly at the corner of the building so as to be unobserved. 

Q. Previous to announcing your discovery or pretended discovery to 
Mr. Beecher, you had fallen into troubles with Henry C. Bowen, had 
you not ? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. How long before ? A. Two days. 

Q. You had ceased to be the editor of the Independent when you 
made this announcement? A. No, sir; I ceased to be the editor of the 
Independent on the first day of January. 

Q. Was not your valedictory published on the 22d of December ? A. 
Yes, sir, but my engagement ended on the 31st. 

Q. Had you not entered into a contract with Mr. Bowen to be the 
editor of the Union and contributor to the Independent before you 
made any announcement to Mr. Beecher of this pretended discovery, 
and had not Mr. Bowen discovered immoralities on your part, and did 
he not threaten to break the engagement with you ? A. No, he 
did not. 

Q. Did he not make such allegations against you, and did not you 
and he appoint a day of meeting at his house, when, in the presence of 
a mutual friend, the allegations against you should be stated, and you 
should make an explanation, and did not you meet in the presence of a 
mutual friend for that purpose ? A. No, sir ; Mr. Johnson wished me, 
about Christmas time, to see Mr. Bowen ; he said there was some story 
afloat concerning me ; I think Christmas was Sunday, and I went to see 
him on Monday ; we had a few words concerning the matter ; he did not 
tell me what the story was; I said, " If there is any story afloat, bring 
the author of it here and let us see what it is;" we then went on in a 
conversation concerning Mr. Beecher. 



132 



THE TRUE HISTORY OF 



Q. Did not you and Mr. Bowen meet on that day, and did not Mr. 
Bowen begin to repeat the charges against you, and did not you, while 
listening to those charges, break out against the Rev. Henry Ward 
Beecher ? A. I did not ; I never heard of those charges until after that 
interview, when Mr. Bowen went from it to bear the letter to Mr. 
Beecher ;I never knew that Mr. Beecher or Mrs. Beecher had anything 
to do with Mr. Bowen's feelings. 

Q. Did not you make an allegation against Mr. Beecher ? A. No, 
sir ; after Mr. Johnson went out he made an allegation. 

Q. Did not you make an allegation? A. I did toward tho end of the 

interview. 

Q. You made a very 
distinct allegation to 
Mr. Bowen, did you not, 
against Mr. Beecher, of 
the offence that he had 
committed against you? 
A. Yes. 

Q. It was on that oc- 
casion, was it not, that 
the letter was agreed 
upon between you and 
Mr. Bowen demanding 
that Mr. Beecher 
should quit Plymouth 
pulpit ? A. I remember 
a letter. 

Q. Was it on that oc- 
casion that that letter 
was agreed upon be- 
tween you and Mr. Bow- 
en ? A. Yes, it was. 

Q. And was that 
agreement the result of 
his statement of the offences against Mr. Beecher which he and you 
knew of? A. On the part of Mr. Bowen, yes. 

Q. On your part ? A. I made one statement and he made many. 
Q. Will you state what offence you stated against Mr. Beecher to 
Mr. Bowen on that occasion ? A. Mr. Johnson, having introduced the 
subject to Mr. Bowen, said to me, " Mr. Tilton, you do not say as much 
of Plymouth Church as a Brooklyn paper should ; you do not go there; 
why do you not go ? " 

Q. I asked you what offence you stated against Mr. Beecher to Mr. 
Bowen ? A. I must answer your question in my own way. I came to 




OLIVER JOHNSON. 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 133 

tell you the truth, and not fragments of the truth. Mr. Bowen wanted 
Hie to speak more in the paper of Plymouth Church. Mr. Johnson 
said, '• Perhaps Mr. Til ton has a reason for not going to Plymouth 
Church." And thereupon Mr. Bowen was curious to know tiie reason. 
I, in a solitary phrase, said that there was a personal domestic reason 
why I could not go there consistently with my self-respect — that Mr. 
Beecher had been unhandsome in his approaches to my wife. That is 
the sum and substance or all I have ever said on this subject to the very 
few people to whom I have spoken of it. 

Q. It was on that occasion that you agreed upon the letter which de- 
manded Mr. Beecher to leave the pulpit ? A. Yes, sir, that was the 
precise occasion. 

Q. You think that was on the 26th of December ? A. I have no recol- 
lection of dates ; the only identification that I have in my mind is that 
it was near Christmas. 

Q. When were you dismissed from the Union ? A. The last night 
of the year, I think. 

Q. The 31st, was it ? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. When did you first learn that Mr. or Mrs. Beecher had in any way 
communicated facts to Mr. Bowen which inflamed him in the matter of 
your dismissal ? A. I learned that from Mr. Beecher himself on the 
day after his apology was written ; it was the 2d, possibly the 3d, of 
January; it was in Mr. Moulton's front room; Mr. Beecher came in; it 
was an unexpected meeting ; he burst out in an expression of great sor- 
row to me, and said he hoped the communication which he had sent to 
me by Mr. .Moulton was satisfactory to me ; he then and there told Mr. 
Moulton he had done wrong, not so much as some others had (referring 
to his wife, who had made statements to Mr. Bowen that ought to be 
unmade), and he there volunteered to write a letter to Mr. Bowen con- 
cerning the facts which he had misstated. 

Q. Uo you say that that was the first time that you knew that Mr. 
Beecher or Mrs. Beecher had given Mr. Bowen any information or had 
had any conversation with him on the subject ? A. Yes, sir ; I did not 
know that Mr. Beecher had given Mr. Bowen any such information ; 
Mrs. Til ton had intimated to me that there was something. 

Q. When did Mrs. Tilton intimate that to you ? A. In December she 
told me of visits which Mrs. Beecher had made to her and of testimony 
which they wanted to get. 

Q. What time in December ? A. I do not know. 

Q. Was it before or after the publication of your valedictory in the 
Independent? A. I do not remember; Mrs. Tilton spoke to me a num- 
ber of times of the enmity which Mrs. Beecher had for some strange 
reason connected with Mrs. Morse (Mrs. Tilton's mother) ; there was a 
conspiracy between Mrs. Morse and Mrs. Beecher before September; the 



134 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

truth is that Mrs. Tilton's confession was made also to her mother, and 
the mother naturally wanted to protect the daughter, and she made a 
kind of alliance with Mr. Beecher, and Mrs. Beecher took part in it ; 
there was a desire on their part to protect Elizabeth. 

Q. You say that Mrs. Til ton referred some time in December to the 
fact that Mrs. Beecher had interfered in your matters ? A. Not that 
she had interfered in my matters, but that Mrs. Morse and Mrs. Beecher 
were colleaguing together with reference to me. 

Q. Are you able to fix that date ? A. It was many times. 

Q. Was any of it before the 22d of December, think you ? A. Yes, I 
think early in the summer, but do not know. 

Q. Any time in December was Mrs. Tilton separated from you with 
her family ? A. Not that I remember; Mrs. Tilton went a few weeks to 
make a visit at her mother's. 

Q. Do you remember the occasion of sending for your wife to come to 
the Union office while she was separated from you? A. Yes, she was 
at her mother's. 

Q. Do you remember telling her that you were about to be dismissed 
from the Union, and that she must return to you and live with you to 
prevent it? 

Q. Did you tell her anything of that ? A. Not a shadow ; it would 
have made no difference one way or the other. 

Q. Did you on that day send a letter by a servant by the name of 
Ellen, directing the person in whose house she was to return your chil- 
dren to your house in her absence ? A. I do not recollect it ; Mrs. 
Morse had the children, and I told Ellen Dennis to bring them home ; I 
do not remember the time. 

Q. Did you send a note by her ? A. I sent quite a peremptory 
message. 

Q. And the children came ? A. Yes, or were brought ; I think there 
was only one. 

Q. Did your wife come late in the evening after that ? A. I do not 
remember ; I think I went personally for Elizabeth, and told her she was 
doing wrong in staying away ; I have no distinct recollection of so many 
details. 

Q. How long after that return was it that this statement, which you 
say she made, and which was placed in Mr. Moulton's hands, was writ- 
ten ? A. I do not know ; I have no means of knowing; the date of her 
giving the letter for the interview with Mr. Beecher I think was on the 
29th of December. 

Q. The object of giving the letters was to bring about an interview 
between you and Mr. Beecher, that there might be a reconciliation, and 
that Mr. Beecher might aid in saving you from dismissal from the Inde- 
pendent ? A. No. Mrs. Tilton thought that my retirement from the 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 135 

papers was due in some way to Mr. and Mrs. Beecher, and she thought, 
as I was very indignant against Mr. Bowen, unless there was some re- 
conciliation between Mr. Beecher and myself, her secret would be ex- 
posed, and she begged me to have an interview with him, and wrote a 
note to that effect. 

Q. Have you that note ? A. I decline to answer. 

Q. Will you produce it ? A. I decline to answer. I decline to an- 
swer because you know the fact already. 

Q. You say that note was written on the 29th day of December ? A. 
I think there is a record on the subject here (in the statement which he 
had read) somewhere. 

By Mr. Hill — Can you refer to a note written by you to Ellen? Bo 
you think that had a date attached which would fix the time ? A. I do 
not know ; I remember Ellen to have had something to do with the re- 
turn of one of the children; 1 think that note was written to Mrs. 
Morse. 

Q. Was not the subject of the interview between you and Mr. Beecher 
for the purpose of inducing him to aid in preventing your dismissal ? 
A. Xo more than it had with this investigation ; the sole purpose of 
that interview was this : Mrs. Tilton felt that Mr. Beecher and I were in 
danger of coming into collision ; for her sake, at her request, I had this 
interview; it was solely in reference to Mrs. Tilton. 

Q. It was two days before your final dismissal, and pending the ques- 
tion whether you should be retained or not ? A. My dismissal from the 
Union came after that interview ; it took effect the last night of the 
year ; my interview with Mr. Beecher had nothing to do with that. 

By General Tracy — It was two days before it, and pending the ques- 
tion of whether you would be dismissed or retained, was it not ? A. No, 
sir, these documents themselves. I think, show that my interview with 
Mr. Beecher was after my dismissal from the Union. 

Q. That interview was on the 29th, and your dismissal was on the 
31st. Then that interview was before your dismissal, and pending the 
question whether you would be retained or dismissed, was it not? A. 
The question of my dismissal was decided in the flash of an eye ; I 
never knew that there was any such question : I. two or three days pre- 
vious to the interview with Mr. Beecher, had filled up contracts, one to 
be editor of the Union for five years, and the other to be chief contrib- 
utor of the Independent, and there was no pending question. 

Q. Was not your contract to be editor of the Union for five years, 
and to be chief contributor of the Independent, signed previous to the 
publication of your valedictory in the Independents A. They were 
signed very near that time. 

Q. Was not the interview at which Mr. Johnson was present at Mr. 
Bowen's house on the 26th of December ? A. Yes, sir. 



136 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Q. The interview with Mr. Beecher was on the 29th? A. I cannot 
say precisely. 

Q. Your final dismissal from the Union was on the 31st ? A. I can- 
not say yes, unless the letters will show. 

Q. Will you tell us why it was that having been possessed of this in- 
formation for six months without any desire to communicate it to Mr. 
Beecher, you were seized with a desire to communicate that information 
to him on or about the 29th of December ? A. Yes, sir ; because Mrs. 
Tilton feared that Mr. Beecher, Mr. Bowen and I were in danger of such 
a clash and collision that the family secret would be exposed, and felt 
that there was a necessity for a reconciliation, and she begged and 
prayed me to be reconciled with Mr. Beecher ; and on her account and 
for her sake I said I would have an interview with him. 

Q. Will you explain why the difficulty you had with Mr. Bowen in 
regard to the Independent and the Union would involve the necessity of 
your exposing the family secret which you obtained from Mrs. Tilton 
six months before? A. It was not through fear of my exposing it; 
Mrs. Morse and Mrs. Beecher were sometimes in collision, and Mrs. 
Tilton always made me believe that Mr. Beecher knew this secret, until 
in December, when she told me, 1 took it for granted, all summer long, 
that she had told him what she had told me, and what she had told her 
mother, and I supposed that Mrs. Beecher was co-operating with Mrs. 
Morse. 

Q. Did you complain of Mr. Beecher for not aiding you to remain in 
the Independent ? A. No, sir ; I would have scorned it. 

Q. You have read Mr. Wilkeson's statement ? A. I have not. 

Q. You know Samuel Wilkeson ? A. Yes. 

Q. Did "you say to him about that time that Mr. Beecher had not be- 
friended you in that matter ? A. I did not, and Mr. Wilkeson will not 
dare to say that under oath. 

Q. You say you never complained of Mr. Beecher for not helping you? 
A. No, not for not helping me, but for being unjust to me and saying 
that I ought to be turned out; I understood that he said to Dr. Spear 
that they were going to have Mr. Tilton out of the Independent ; Mr. 
Charles Briggs told me that; he said, "I know something about this 
thing ; I heard some such thing." 

Q. You say that Mr. Beecher apologized and that you accepted the 
apology ? A. I read the account of that in the document. 

Q. Did you, or did you not. as a matter of fact, accept the apology 
which Mr. Beecher made, and forgive the offence ? A. I accepted the 
apology and forgave the offence with as much largeness as I thought it 
was possible for a Christian man to assume. 

Q. Friendly relations continued after that between you and Mr. 
Beecher? A. Well, not friendly ; you can understand what such rela- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 137 

tions would be ; they were not hostile ; they were relations which Mr. 
Moulton forced with an iron hand ; he compelled them. 

Q. Did you or not, after or about the time of the tripartite agreement, 
express friendly sentiments in regard to him ? A.I have taken pains to 
make it appear in all quarters that Mr. Beecher and I were not in hos- 
tility, and I have suppressed my self-respect many times in doing it. 

Q. Did yon ever state this offence of Mr. Beecher as committed against 
you to Mr. Storrs ? A. I never did. 

Q. Was it ever stated in your presence to him ? A. No, sir ; he read 
a statement that Mrs. Tilton made and that I helped her to make. 

Q. Did you go with her when she made that statement to Dr. Storrs ? 
A. I did not. 

Q. Did you ever state or read to Dr. Storrs any statement of the 
offences which you charged against Mr. Beecher ? A. No ; I showed 
Dr. Storrs a letter which Elizabeth and myself wrote, and which I still 
preserve; Mr. Carpenter and I went to Dr. Storrs as counsellor; my 
intention was to have Elizabeth go, but she preferred to write a few 
lines. 

Q. You took what she wrote and what you helped her to write to Dr. 
Storrs and showed it to him as the statement of the offence which you 
charged Mr. Beecher with? A. No, I did not charge Mr. Beecher with 
any offence at all. 

Q. I am trying to get at what offence you stated against Mr. 
Beecher? A. Elizabeth stated that. 

Q. And you have it, and gave it to Dr. Storrs to read ? A. Yes, sir 

Q. How was the offence stated ? A. It began in this way, that on a 
certain day, in the summer of 1870, she had informed her husband that 
Mr. Beecher had asked her to be a wife to him, together with all that 
this implies; she was very solicitous to make it appear that she did not 
accept his proposition, and, happily, in reading it, those who saw it 
naturally inferred that she did not accept his proposition ; it was a 
perfectly correct statement. 

Q. You and she wrote it ? A. She wrote it with my assistance. 

Q. You took that statement to Dr. Storrs, and it was read by him in 
your presence ? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. It was read also by Mr. Beecher ? A. I read it to him my self- 
Mr. Beecher objected to it and I made no further use of it. 

Q. You prepared a document, did yon not. giving a history of this 
case ? A.. No, not in this case, but of my relations to Mr. Bowen. 

Q. It was stated in that document ? A. Yes; this letter of Elizabeth's 
was quoted in it. 

Q. And it was read to Dr. Storrs ? A. Yes. 

Q. Did you also quote the letter of apology in it? A. Just as I did 
in the letter to Dr. Bacon? 



138 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Q. You quoted the apology as an apology for the offence ? You 
stated and cited as proof that he had* apologized for that offence? 
A. Yes, I put that in, not wishing to make the offence more than that ; 
I was solicitous not to have the worst of the case known. 

Q. You went voluntarily to Dr. Storrs, did you not ? A. I did, in 
great distress, wanting counsel. 

Q. And so as to get correct counsel you misstated the case? A. Yes, 
as you did ill your statement in the Union ; it was a statement neces- 
sary to be made ; after Mrs. Woodhull's statement I was out of town, 
and the thing had filled the country, and Mr. Beecher had taken no 
notice of it ; it was seven or eight days old, and I went to Dr. Storrs 
for counsel ; he asked me about the story; I said, " Do not ask me for 
that; " he said, " Give me some facts by which I can judge ; give me 
that which can be proved;" so I gave an account of my affairs very 
largely, about Mrs. Woodhull, and so on; the origin of that document 
was a seeking for something that would put before the public a plausible 
answer to the Woodhull tale ; and I conceived that by a chain of facts 
we might, perhaps, explain it away. I read it to Mr. Beecher and he 
burst into a long sigh, and I saw that he would not or could not stand 
upon it ; and Elizabeth burned it or tore it to pieces. 

Q. You showed it to others, did you not ? A. To a few friends. 

Q. To whom besides Dr. Storrs? A. I think I showed it to George 
Bell ; I showed it to one or two. 

Q. Did you show it to Mr. Beecher ? A. No ; I think not ; I think I 
showed him the document in the tripartite confession. 

Q. You have known Mr. Beecher many years ? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Is he your personal friend? A. I used to regard him as such. 

Q. You remember showing him something on the subject? A. I 
remember showing him the letter in proof which explained my going 
out of the Independent and the Union ; whether I showed him the doc- 
ument I cannot say ; I showed it to a number of people, hoping that it 
would do good : but it did not, so it disappeared. 

Q. You say Mr. Beecher refused to stand upon it ? A. No ; Mr. 
Moulton asked Mr. Beecher to come and hear me read it ; I was in 
hopes Mr. Beecher might not feel bad at such a document, but he felt 
slain by it. 

Q. And, just as on other occasions, he refused to stand by a state- 
ment of the offence ? A. No ; he drew a long sigh. 

Q. You understood him as refusing ? A. No ; I did not understand 
that. 

Q. Why did you abandon the document? A. Because there was no 
success in it. 

Q. Why was there no success in it ? Was it not because he did not 
accept it ? A. Because he did not accept or reject it ; he wanted that 
no statement should be made, and so the thing was buried. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 139 

Q. Did you ever state the offence to Dr. Budington ? A. I never 
saw him until within two weeks ; I heard that he went to see Dr. Bacon, 
and I went to see him. 

Q. Have you not frequently asserted the purity of your wife? 
A. No ; I have always had a strange technical use of words ; I have 
always used words that conveyed that impression ; I have taken pains 
to say that she was a devoted Christian woman; that necessarily carried 
the other ; it was like the statement that I carried to Dr. Storrs ; I do 
not think he caught the idea of that statement ; as he took it I do not 
think that it covered the whole ; I have said that Elizabeth was a ten- 
der, delicate, kindly Christian woman, which I think she is. 

Q. Have you not stated that she was pure ? A. No. 

Q. Have you not stated that she was as pure as an angel ? A. No ; 
Mr. Halliday says I said that ; he asked me in Mrs. Bradshaw's presence 
whether or not I had not said that my wife was as pure as gold. "No," 
I said, " Mr. Halliday, because the conversation to which you allude was 
this : I said, ' Go and ask Mr. Beecher himself and he will say that she 
is as pure as gold ;' " it is an expression which he used ; I have sought 
to give Elizabeth a good character; I have always wanted to do so ; T 
think she deserves a good character ; I think she is better than most of 
us — better than I am ; I do not believe in point of actual moral goodness 
barring some drawbacks, that there is in this company so white a soul as 
Elizabeth Tilton. 

Q. Did you not state that, in substance, to one or more of the gentle- 
men with whom you were lunching ? A. In substance, yes ; and I state 
it now, but I did not use the phrase that she had never violated her 
chastity. 

Q. Did you not say that she was pure ? A. No. 

Q. Did you not use expressions which you intended to be understood 
as meaning the purity of the woman ? A. I did, exactly. There are 
many- ways in which you can produce such impressions, and I have 
written this document to produce the same impression. 

By Mr. White — Mr. Wilkeson, in his testimony, stated in substance 
that he had a long conversation with you in regard to Mr. Beecher's 
offences, and that in answer to his inquiry as to what these offences 
consisted of, you said that he had made improper addresses to your wife, 
and that he then said to you that he had heard from another person 
whom he named to you, that it referred to more than the implication, 
that it referred to adultery, which you denied. Is that true ? A. No ; 
the conversation was about Mr. Bowen ; he came to me with a flushed 
and rose-colored eulogy on Mr. Beecher for me to sign ; it was desired 
that Mr. Bowen's charges should be withdrawn, and it was said to me, 
" Suppose Mr. Bowen is willing to blot this out, you have no interest 
to keep it afloat ? " " No," I said. " Well, if Mr. Bowen will withdraw 



140 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

those charges, will you agree to consider them blotted out ? " I said, 
" Certainly." I was exceedingly glad to have it done, for I thought that 
every charge against Henry Ward Beecher endangered my wife ; I said 
that I would sign it twenty times over, or conveyed such an idea ; but 
when the paper was brought to me to sign it was a compliment to Mr. 
Beecher, rose-colored, in which I was to look up to him with filial re- 
spect. 1 said, " I won't sign that to the end of the world," and I cut 
out a few lines and would not use them. 

Q. It is not with reference to the circumstances of signing the paper 
that I am speaking, but with reference to the question which he puts to 
you as to the offence. A. He did not put to me any such question ; 
Mr. Wilkeson is too much of a gentleman to ask a man whether his 
wife had committed adultery. 

Q. Mr. Wilkeson says you took the paper away to make such emenda- 
tions as you chose before signing it, and that after, perhaps, the second 
night, on its return, you said to him that you never would sign any- 
thing that required you to let up on Henry Ward Beecher? A. 1 said 
that my self-respect would not permit me to do it; I told him also, or 
I told other persons, that I would keep to the line of that necessary 
reconciliation which Mr. Moulton had planned, but that as for going to 
Mr. Beecher's church, or signing such a letter, I would wait to the end 
of the world first, and I did not think Mr. Bowen would sign it. 

By Mr. Cleveland — You expressed confidence in the paper you 
signed in Mr. Beecher, did you not? A. No; I expressed friendliness 
towards him. 

By Mr. White — Mr. Wilkeson says, in substance, that in speaking 
of your dismissal from the Union you spoke of Mr. Beecher as not 
assisting you. and said that you would follow him to his grave? A. If 
Mr. Wilkeson communicated the impression that I ever wanted money 
from Henry Ward Beecher, it is false; Mr. Beecher has communicated, 
through Mr. Moulton, requests that I be assisted by him, but I would 
not take a penny of Mr. Beecher's money if I suffered from hunger or 
thirst; and I said that if directly or indirectly he (Mr. Moulton) com- 
municated to me any of his (Mr. Beecher's) money it would break our 
friendship ; W T ilkeson was very friendly to me ; he is a sweet, lovable 
man, and it is an unaccountable thing that his memory is so bad ; he 
is getting old ; I have a letter in which he wants that apology de- 
livered up. 

Q. I will read to you from Mr. Wilkeson's testimony : " His next 
complaint was that Mr. Beecher did not help him in his troubles." A. 
That's a lie ; my complaint was that Mr. Beecher had been unjust to 
me, not that he had not helped me ; I would not have taken his help. 

By General Tracy — I ask you whether your relations toward Mr. 
Beecher, since January 1, 1871, have not been friendly? A. Yes, sir; 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 141 

my relations and feelings towards him since January, 1871, when he 
made the apology, down to the time when the church began to put out 
its right hand and take me by the throat, were friendly. 

Q. They are not now friendly, but they were friendly up to the be- 
ginning of the action of the church in this matter ? A. Yes, sir ; that 
is to say, they were friendly in the sense that we were not in collision 
with each other. 

Q. Were they not those of friendship ? A. No, they were not. 

Q. What did you mean by saying, after that apology was made, that 
you desired to see Mr. Beecher protected, rather than harmed, for his 
offence against you ? A. So I did. 

Q. Do you mean to say that that sentence expressed your real feel- 
ings toward a man who, you believed, had seduced your wife ? A. Yes ; 
I was under obligation ; I had taken his apology and I had given my 
word that I would not have him exposed. 

Q. Is it your sentiment that that is an offence for which one man can 
apologize to another ? A. I know there is a code of honor among gen- 
tlemen that a man cannot condone such an offence ; but I cannot see 
what offence a man cannot forgive, where an apology is made by the 
person committing it to the person against whom it is committed ; if a 
man believes in the Christian religion he ought to ; I sometimes for- 
gave and sometimes I did not ; I do know the line of difference. 

Q. Is that your handwriting (showing a slip of paper on which was 
written " H. W. B. — Grace, mercy and peace. Sunday morning. T. T.") ? 
A. I remember that ; one morning Mr. Beecher met me in the street 
and told me how much pleasure it gave him ; I have sent kindlier 
things than that to him. 

Q. Did you feel as you spoke ? A. I did ; Mr. Moulton said two or 
three times, "Mr. Beecher is in great depression; can't you do some- 
thing to cheer him?" one morning I walked to the church with him; 
in many circumstances I manifested feelings of kindness toward him ; 
it would be a lie for me to say that I had a warm friendship for Mr. 
Beecher, and that I felt as kindly to him as if the offence had not been 
committed ; if I had been a man morally great, I would have blotted it 
out and trodden it under foot ; I was competent to forgive in a large 
degree ; I forgave him in my best moods, but at other times I did not ; 
I am not a very large man. 

Q. You have quoted extensively the letters of your wife written prior 
to the time you say that she said this intercourse began — have you not 
her letters written to you also since that time and during that time ? 
A. No ; because at that time I came home to be editor of the Union, 
and have not lectured since. 

Q. I ask you whether you have not letters from her written during 
the time that you say this was going on, and since then ? A. No, not 



142 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

written since ; because I have not had occasion since to have letters ; I 
have been at home. 

Q. I understand you to say that these relations went on during your 
absence ; have you any letters that were written by your wife at that 
time? A. No. 

Q. Have you not letters from her that were written to you between 
1868 and 1870 ? A. 1 think I have. 

Q. Will you be kind enough to produce them to the committee ? A. 
I do not know whether I will or not. 

Q. Have you any letters from Mrs. Tilton complaining to you ? A. 
Yes, I have. 

Q. Have you. not many letters from her stating forth her complaints 
and her grievances ? A. No ; she very rarely wrote such letters ; she 
used occasionally to write me letters begging intercession in regard to 
her mother, and complaining of my views in theology. 

Q. Did you never receive letters from her complaining in other 
respects ? A. In what respects ? 

Q. Well, in regard to people who were in the habit of frequenting 
your house at your solicitation ? A. I have had letters from her 
mother, complaining of Susan Anthony and Mrs. Stanton; Mrs. Tilton 
thought Mr. Johnson and others were leading me astray ; she is very 
orthodox ; and she wrote me letters expressing strong and earnest 
hopes that I would be intensely orthodox. 

Q. Did she complain of any female society on that ground, or in any 
way? A. No. 

Q. Did she never complain of the presence of any ladies at your 
house ? A. I do not think of any 

Q. Not of Mrs. Stanton nor Susan Anthony? A. She said she would 
consider it an insult if they came to the house ; I do not remember of 
any others. 

Q. Mrs. Woodhull came a great deal, didn't she? A. She was 
three times in my house, once to meet Mr. Beecher, and on two other 
occasions. 

Q. Only three times ? A. Three only. 

Q. You say she came to meet Mr. Beecher ? A. She did, on Sunday 
afternoon, at my house. , 

Q. Do you know when that was? A. I think Mr. Moulton made 
that interview; it must have been in 1871 or 1872, because my acquaint- 
ance with Mrs. Woodhull began in May, 1871 ; my impression is that it 
was warm weather ; Mrs. Woodhull and her husband came ; she always 
came with her husband. 

Q. Did your wife complain of her being at your house ? A. Yes ; my 
wife came home, and Mrs. Woodhull and Mr. Moulton were there sitting 
in the front parlor. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 143 

Q. What happened ? A. Oh, nothing except that Elizabeth expressed 
her indignation against the woman ; I told Elizabeth that she was too 
dangerous a woman, and that too much of the welfare of our family de- 
pended on her ; Elizabeth was wiser than I was. 

Q. Did you excuse your acquaintance with Mrs. Woodhull to your 
wife by exciting her fears ? A. I did not; I explained that acquaintance; 
I told her the way to get along with Mrs. Woodhull, and prevent this 
coming out, was to keep friendly with her ; it was a fatal policy, but 
then it seemed the only thing that we could do. 

Q. Was the time that Mrs. Tilton expressed her indignation at Mrs. 
Woodhull's being at your house the first time that she had seen Mrs. 
Woodhull. to your knowledge? A. My impression is that she saw her 
in the Golden Age office once. It may have been before or after. I 
think Mrs. Woodhull came in to see me while Mrs. Tilton was there. 

Q. With that exception, was the time when Mrs. Tilton expressed her 
indignation at Mrs. Woodhull's being at your house the first time that 
she had seen her ? A. I do not know. Oh, no ; Mrs. Woodhull and 
Colonel Blood had taken tea at our house. 

Q. Before Mrs. Tilton came in and found her there ? A. Yes. 

Q. At whose invitation did they take tea there ? A. At mine. 

Q. Was it the first time Mrs. Tilton saw Mrs. Woodhull ? A. I do 
not know. 

Q. Mrs. Tilton always expressed indignation at her being there, did 
she not? A. Yes, she hud a violent feeling against her; she had a 
woman's instinct that Mrs. Woodhull was not safe ; the mistake was in 
not being friendly with Blood instead of Mrs. Woodhull ; that was the 
blunder; I was at fault for that; nobody else. 

Q. Did Mrs. Tilton continue her expressions of indignation at your 
acquaintance with Mrs. Woodhull? A. Yes; Mrs. Tilton always felt 
that the policy was a mistaken one of undertaking to do anything with 
Mrs. Woodhull ; Mrs. Tilton objected violently to my writing the sketch 
of Mrs. Woodhull ; I read part of it to her ; Mrs. Woodhull's husband 
wrote a biography about her, and w r anted me to rewrite it, because my 
style was more vivid ; Mrs. Tilton said she thought I would rue the 
day ; she was far wiser than 1 was. 

Q. Then you never succeeded in convincing your wife that it was 
necessary to placate Mrs. Woodhull? A. No, she had the opposite 
opinion ; Mrs. Tilton had a strong repugnance to Mrs. Woodhull, and 
to two or three other public women — Mrs. Stanton and Susan An- 
thony ; she would not permit them to come into the house, and some 
of her letters were very violent against them ; she was frequently with 
them for a long time, and took part with them in women's meetings, 
and then she took a violent antagonism to them after her troubles 
came on. 



144 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Q. Did Mrs. Woodhull know of the antipathy of Mrs. Tilton to her ? 
A. Yes ; you could see it in the women's eyes ; they flashed fire ; the 
moment they saw each other their eyes flashed fire. 

Q. It was perfectly evident, then, when the women came together, 
that they were thoroughly antagonistic ? A. Oh, yes ; thoroughly. 

Q. Bitterly so ? A. I cannot say that Elizabeth had bitterness ; she 
had a certain strong moral and religious repugnance. 

Q. Did not she discard Mrs. Woodhull's sentiments and denounce 
them? A. Mrs. Woodhull had not then expressed her sentiments. 

Q. Not in 1872 ? A. This was not in 1872 ; when I wrote the sketch 
of Mrs. Woodhull she had never said anything on the subject of free 
love ; her ideas were spiritualism and woman's suffrage. 

THE SECOND DAY'S EXAMINATION. 

July 22, 1874. 

By General Tracy — Q. Mr. Tilton, on page 51 of your manuscript, 
in subdivision X, you say, "in December, 1870, differences arose 
between Theodore Tilton and Henry C. Bowen, which were augmented 
by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and Mrs. Beecher, in consequence 
whereof, and at the wish of Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton, expressed in 
writing, in a paper put into the hands of," etc.; you do not state then 
in whose handwriting it was? A. It was Mrs. Tilton's. 

Q. Was it not in your handwriting ? A. It was not, sir. 

Q. Did you not write that statement and get her to sign it? A. 
No, sir. 

Q. Did you dictate it in any manner? A. I did not. 

Q. Did you write the original ? A. I did not. 

Q. Was she well or sick at the time? A. She was neither one nor 
the other ; she was ailing. 

Q. Had she not suffered a miscarriage just previous ? A. Well, I do 
not know how long before ; I cannot tell the date ; whether it came 
before or after I dc not know ; she was ill, I know. 

Q. Was she not in bed ? A. Most of the time. 

Q. Was she not in bed at the time of the writing of this paper ? A. 
I do not remember. 

Q. Do not you remember whether she wrote it in bed or not? A. I 
do not. 

Q. Do not you know that she had suffered a miscarriage a few days 
before ? A. No ; 1 knew she had suffered a miscarriage before. 

Q. Before the 24th day of December ? A. I do not remember the 
date. 

Q. Do not you know that she was very sick, and sick unto death ? 
A. No, I do not know that she was sick unto death ; she was ill, but 
not dangerously so. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 145 

Q. Who suggested to her the writing of that letter? A. She did 
herself. 

Q. Was she conversant with the particular state of your difficulty 
with Mr. Bowen from time to time and from day to day ? A. It was 
not from day to day ; I always informed her what troubles I had. 

Q. You say this letter was written in consequence of the interference 
of Mr. and Mrs. Beecher? A. No, not precisely; I say that the letter 
was written through her desire that he and I should be reconciled. 

Q. When you say that " in December, 1870, differences arose between 
Theodore Tilton and Henry C. Bowen, which were augmented by the 
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and Mrs. Beecher; in consequence whereof, 
and at the wish of Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton, expressed in writing in a 
paper put into the hands of Mr. Francis D. Moulton," why do you say 
that it was in consequence of that difficulty being augmented by Mr. 
and Mrs. Beecher that this letter was written or this writing was made ? 
A. Mrs. Tilton's confession to me was in the middle of the summer. 
She informed me shortly afterward that she had taken occasion to let 
Mr. Beecher know that she had made this confession, but she did not 
do that. I supposed that he knew of her confession, but he did not 
know of it. I met Mr. Beecher in the street, and he was about to speak 
to me. I did not speak to him ; that excited my suspicion of the fact 
he could not have known of Mrs. Tilton's confession ; so I said to her, 
" Elizabeth, did not you tell me that Mr. Beecher knew what you had 
told me ? to my mind he don't know it." She then informed me that 
she could not bear to let him know that she had confessed ; then, I 
think, her sickness came, though my recollection of dates, as I have 
said, is very poor. Toward the close of the year, or very near the close 
of the year, Mr. Bowen wanted to make a change in the editorship of 
the Independent. Mrs. Tilton was at Mrs Morse's; she had gone to 
stay there a little while. Mr. Bowen sent me a notice or letter, saying 
that he wanted the termination of my contract as editor of the Indepen- 
dent to take place six months subsequently. I said to myself instantly, 
'• If Mr. Bowen wishes me to terminate the Independent, 1 must give 
him notice to terminate the Union ; but before that I will send to 
Elizabeth to come to the Union office, and state this proposition to 
her." She came down, and I informed her; I said. "Now. I cannot 
afford to edit only one of these papers ; if I am to give up one, I can- 
not keep the other." When Mr. Bowen proposed that I should give up 
one and retain the other, I instantly said. "As he proposes that I shall 
give up the Independent. I will give up the Union, and that will leave 
me free to lecture." After that, about the 23d or 24th of December, Mr. 
Bowen came to have a consultation with me and make new contracts, 
by which he should be editor of the Independent and I a special con- 
tributor of the Independent and for five years editor of the Union ; that 
10 



146 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

contract was signed during the last week or ten days of 1870, and I 
published a valedictory in the Independent, speaking well of Mr. Bowen, 
and he spoke well oi me. Somewhere about the 23d or 24th or 25th— 
between the publishing of that valedictory and the making of those two 
or three contracts— Mr. Johnson came to my house and said, "Mr. 
Bowen has heard something prejudicial concerning you ; I think you 
had better go and see him." It was Saturday night. I went plump to 
his house and saw him, and said, "Mr. Bowen. Mr. Johnson says that 
you know something prejudicial to me." Mr. Bowen said, " I have my 
new editors in consultation, and it is Saturday night ; come on Mon- 
day." Monday was a holiday. Either Sunday was the actual Christ- 
mas or else Monday was, I do not remember which. I went on Monday 
with Mr. Johnson. I think this was on the 25th. We had a little talk. 
It was mentioned that some story had come to Mr. Bowen. I said, 
" Bring the person who told it into my presence, and we will have the 
matter settled." I then went on talking about the new contract which 
I was to enter upon two or three days hence, as the editor of the 
Union for five years; he said that I ought to make more of Plymouth 
Church, and go to Plymouth Church ; Mr. Johnson said, " Perhaps 
this young man has a reason for not going to Plymouth Church;" 
I gave him in a line to understand that I had lost my respect for Mr. 
Beecher, and could not, as a man maintaining my pride and self-respect, 
go there ; at that Mr. Bowen stated all the particulars that I chronicled 
of Mr. Beecher in that letter, only more vividly; at that Mr. Bowen 
made a challenge that Mr. Beecher would retire from the ministry, and 
said he would bear it and fortify it witli facts, and I signed it and he 
carried it ; in a few hours Mr. Moulton came in and I told him what I had 
done, and he said, "You are a damned fool. Mr. Bowen should have 
signed the letter as well as yourself;" the next morning I went to the 
Union office, and perhaps the morning after I wrote a little note to Mr. 
Bowen, the substance of which was that I was going to have a personal 
interview with Mr. Beecher; that I thought was the manly thing; Mr. 
Bowen, the next morning, after he had instituted this demand for the 
retirement of Mr. Beecher, and after saying that he would fortify it with 
facts, came to the Union office and said, " Sir, if you ever reveal to Mr. 
Beecher the things that I told you and Mr. Johnson I will cashier you; " 
it went through my blood ; I said. " I will, at my discretion, utterly un- 
influenced by you ;" and he was in a rage ; then, after two or three days, 
and while I was writing my first article for the Independent under the 
new arrangement, as contributor instead of editor, there came (I guess 
it was the last night of the year) notices breaking my two contracts ; 
those two contracts had been made within a week, and were not to take 
effect until the first of the year, and they were broken the last night of 
the year, or the night before ; I w r ent around to Frank with them, and 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 147 

showed them to him immediately; the next day I wrote my letter to 
Mr. Bowen; events came crowding together pell-mell so thick and fast 
that I do not know how to disentangle them. 

Q. Why do you say that it was in consequence of the difficulty being 
augmented by Mr. and Mrs. Beecher ? A. Elizabeth saw that Mr. 
Bowen and I were in collision ; she was afraid that the collision would 
extend to Mr. Beecher and me, and she wished me, if possible, to make 
peace with him ; that peace could be brought about only by his knowing 
what I knew of his relations with Mrs. Tilton ; therefore, she wrote a 
womanly, kindly letter to him ; I do not remember the phraseology ; I 
remember only one phrase ; it was peculiarly hers ; she said she loved 
her husband with her maiden flame ; Mr. Moulton will probably recall 
the whole phraseology. 

Q. What was the substance of the letter ? A. The substance of the 
letter I do not recall ; the letter was returned to her ; whether she has 
it or not I do not know ; the object of the letter was to make peace ; 
she felt that if Mr. Beecher and I could be reconciled, she herself and I 
would be more reconciled; there was a sort of mountain of clouds over- 
coming us. 

Q. Who had reported to her the fact that your difficulty was being 
augmented by Mr. and Mrs. Beecher ? A. I do not know ; she reported 
it to me ; it was through her that I learned that Mrs. Beecher was in- 
terfering with my affairs ; it was through Mrs. Tilton that I learned of 
Mrs. Beecher's antagonism to me ; I do not think Mr. Beecher was so 
largely involved in it as his wife was. 

Q. Had you known of Mr. Beecher's interference with your affairs 
prior to that ? A. I cannot say with my affairs — not with my business 
affairs; with my domestic affairs; no, as I recollect, Elizabeth went 
sometimes to the Health Lift. Mrs. Beecher came there and saw her 
one day. 

Q. What date was that ? A. I do not know ; Mrs. Beecher, through 
Mrs. Morse, got the idea that I was Mr. Beecher's enemy ; therefore 
Mrs. Beecher was very violently my enemy ; Mrs. Beecher being my 
enemy, and feeling that I was bent on a battle against her husband, 
sought to make an alliance with Elizabeth, and, as I understand, wanted 
Elizabeth to go away from me and part company, and she would not do 
it — the trouble having hinged on the fact that- Elizabeth had made me 
and Mrs. Morse a confession, but had not told Mr. Beecher that she had 
done so ; I said there was only one way out of the difficulty, and that 
was that Mr. Beecher must know it. 

Q. Did you say that to Elizabeth? A. I do not know about that. 

Q. Had you said it previous to that ? A. I do not know ; I felt 
greatly chagrined at her not having told him, as she said she had ; I 
could not understand why Mr. Beecher should speak to me in the street, 
and I instantly said, " He does not know it." 



148 THE TRUE HISTOEY OF 

Q. You do not know when it Avas that he spoke to yon in the street ? 
A. My impression is that it could not have been much later than his 
first coming back from the country. 

Q. When was that? A. All I can remember of that is the picture 
of the man with a kind of sunburn on him ; if you will ask Elizabeth 
all of these things she can tell you ; there was a large mass of compli- 
cations that were afterward explained. 

Q. Was not Mrs. Tilton sick on the evening of the 30th of December 
and in bed ? A. I do not know whether she was or not. 

Q. Do not you know that one of your allegations or complaints was 
that he obtained that retraction from her when she was sick in bed ? 
A. I know that she was lying in bed. 

Q. Did you not charge him with imposing upon her because she was 
sick? A. Yes. 

Q. And was she not sick ? A. I remember the picture of her lying 
ailing on the bed. 

Q. What physician attended her? A. I think Dr. Parker; it may 
have been Dr. Stiles ; lie was subsequently our physician. 

Q. This first letter which you quote from Mrs. Tilton, on page 35, in 
which she says : — " Love is praiseworthy, but to abuse the gift is sin ; 
here I am strong ; no temptations or fascinations," etc., what did you 
understand by that ? A. I understood this — that she was in the receipt 
of visits from him, and that she had once or twice felt that perhaps he 
was exercising an undue influence upon her ; I know that once I was 
afraid she did not give me a correct account of his visits ; there were a 
great many visits mentioned in her correspondence. 

Q. Have you the letters here ? A. No. 

Q. I thought that you were to bring them ? A. All the originals 
from which I have quoted I will carry before Judge Keynolds or any 
Judge, in the presence of General Tracy ; I have great confidence in 
you, gentlemen, but I do not propose to produce the originals here; if 
you will release one of your number to go with me before any magis- 
trate I will produce them ; Mr. Moulton will, of course, be asked to pro- 
duce his for examination, line for line ; I do not suppose you would 
snatch them away or keep them, but at the same time I propose that if 
you were to see the originals General Tracy should go with me. 

Q. Do you refuse to produce the originals before this committee ? A. 
I do not refuse to produce them to the committee in the presence of 
some outside parties. * 

Q. Do you refuse to produce them to the committee alone? A. Yes, 
unless I can have some friend here with me. 

Q. Why did you not take that position yesterday ? A. Because 
yesterday we had only a chat. 

Q. Yes, but did you not promise to produce them ? A. Yes, and I 
do now. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 149 

Q. But you decline except in the presence of an officer ? A. I decline 
unless I can be perfectly certain that they will be returned to me ; I 
don't want you to consider that as a disparagement; it is only a neces- 
sary element in this discussion ,• you shall see the originals, but I will 
only show them under safeguards. 

Q. Why do you make that qualification ? A. For this reason : you 
are six gentlemen determined, if possible, not to find the facts, but to 
vindicate Mr. Beecher, and I am alone. There are eight of you and I 
am a single man, and if I should hand over to you now Mr. Beecher's 
apology perhaps you would not return it to me. Though I do not mean 
to make that implication, I do not mean to give you the chance. That 
is frank. 

Mr. Hill — Let me say kindly, speaking on behalf of both of the 
counsel — the committee may speak for themselves — that the suggestion 
of such a theory is altogether groundless. 

General Tracy — It is not only groundless, but outrageous. 

Mr. Hill — I think you are unjust. 

Mr. Tilton — I have been informed that this is a matter of life and 
death. 

Mr. Claflin — This committee could not afford to take that position. 
It would not do to take those letters from you. 

Mr. Tilton — I am perfectly willing to bring several friends of mine 
and make an examination of these letters ; you shall see them ; but under 
proper safeguards — that is all ; if Mr. Tracy were in my position he 
would take the same ground. 

General Tracy — No, he would not, I beg your pardon. 

Q. At the beginning of the acquaintance of Mr. Beecher with your 
family — not with you or your wife, but with your family — did not you 
invite him frequently to your house ? A. Yes, sir ; and I was always 
very proud when he came. 

Q. Did you not say to him frequently that you desired him to visit 
your house frequently ? A. I did, and always scolded him because he 
did not come oftener ; during the first part of our life we were in Oxford 
street, so far away that he very rarely came ; the frequency of his visits 
took place after 1 purchased the house in Livingston street. 

Q. When was that ? A. I have forgotten the year ; I should say it 
was seven, or eight, or nine, or ten years ago. 

Q. Did not you say that there was a little woman at your house that 
loved him dearly ? A. I did, many a time ; I always wanted him to 
come oftener. 

Q. You frequently spoke to him of the high esteem and affection 
that your wife bore to him, did you not ? A. I did ; he knew it and I 
knew it. 

Q. You always knew it ? A. I cannot say that I always did, because 



150 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

at first, during the early years of my married life, I felt that Mr. Beecher 
rather slighted my family ; he was intimate with me, and I think loved 
me ; but he did not use to come very often to my house, and it did not 
please me ; I wanted him to come oftener. 

Q. And it wounded you, did it not? A. I cannot say that I was 
wounded ; I was a mere boy ; it was a matter of pride to have him there ; 
Elizabeth at first was modest and frightened ; she did not know how to 
talk with him, or how to entertain him, and it was a slow process by 
which he obtained her confidence so that she could talk with him ; it 
was the same with Mr. Greeley ; he had great reverence for her, and had 
an exalted opinion of her ; I do not think there was a woman that he 
had a higher regard for than Mrs. Tilton. 

Q. And did not she have a high regard for him also ? A. Yes. 

Q. And that was known to you too ? A. That was known to me, and 
I was very glad of it. 

Q. Mr. Greeley came to your house often ? A. He used to come and 
stay sometimes in the summer a week or two at a time ; we kept bache- 
lor's hall ; yes, he came often ; it was always a white day when Mr. 
Greeley came ; he used to say that he never would come in my absence ; 
he said it was not a good habit. 

Q. Did you urge him to come when you were off lecturing ? A. I did. 

Q. Did you not impress upon Mr. Beecher the necessity and desire 
that you had that he would call upon your family and see your wife 
frequently during your absence ? A. I did. 

Q. Now, Mr. Tilton, you have stated the religious character of your 
wife ; will you describe it again ? A. My wife's religious character I 
have, if you will pardon the allusion, undertaken to set forth in the 
book that I have spent a year in writing — a work of fiction called 
" Tempest Tossed " — a name strangely borrowed from my own heaving 
breast; in that novel is a character, Mary Vail; I do not want to say 
vainly before the public that I drew that character for Elizabeth, but I 
did ; there is a chapter — the ninth, I think (I won't be certain about the 
number) — which is called " Mary Yail's Journal ; " I know it is good 
because I made it up from Elizabeth's letters, and my heart was cleft in 
twain to find in these letters some of the same sentences that crept into 
this chapter ; I changed them considerably, to make them conform to 
the story ; I had this feeling, that if in this novel I could, as a mere 
subordinate part of the story, paint that character, and have it go 
quietly, in an underhanded way, forth, that that was Elizabeth (for I 
think I drew it faithfully) it would be a very thorough answer, as coming 
from me, to the scandals in the community, and that people would say, 
•'Theodore respects his wife," as I do to-day. 

Q. Was it a truthful character of Elizabeth ? A. It was ; it was not 
drawn as well as the original would warrant. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 151 

Q. You say it was not drawn as well as the original would warrant ; 
then her devotion and purity of life would warrant a higher character 
than you have given '-Mary Vail" in that book? A. Yes, unless you 
attach a technical meaning to the word purity ; she was made a victim. 

Q. You say that that character in that book falls below the original ? 
A. Yes, because I did not make it a prominent, but a subordinate 
character. 

Q. Are there any other persons that figure in this drama who are 
described in that book, ''Tempest Tossed?" A. No, except by mere 
suggestions. 

Q. Is not your true friend described there ? 

Mr. Tilton — You mean Mr. Moulton ? 

Gener-al Tracy — Yes. A. No; of the characters in "Tempest 
Tossed" Mary Vail is the only one that is true to life ; the character of 
the colored woman was partly suggested by a colored woman that I 
knew. 

Q. You have brought forward the letter of your wife where she de- 
scribes herself as having received new light, as having read the charac- 
ter of Catharine Gaunt in " Griffith Gaunt ; " have you read the 
character of Catharine Gaunt? A. Yesterday I said no, but I have 
an impression that I have ; a friend of mine yesterday morning said 
that it is a singular result from "The Terrible Temptation;" Charles 
Reade has written a book called " The Terrible Temptation ; " I have 
never read that book, but on second thought I think I have read " Grif- 
fith Gaunt;" my impression is that I read it on a journey, and that I 
wrote something to Elizabeth about it and asked her to read it. 

Q. Did you think that the guilt of " Catharine Gaunt " was that of 
adultery ? A. I have no idea that I did. 

Q. Has there been a change in your religious views since you were 
married ? A. Yes, sir, very decided, I am happy to say ; I think there 
is in every sensible man's. 

Q. Do you know whether the change in your religious convictions 
was a source of great grief and sorrow to your wife ? A. It was a great 
source of tears and anguish to her ; she said to me once that denying 
the divinity of Christ in her view nullified our marriage almost ; and I 
think next to the sorrow of this scandal it has caused that woman to 
sorrow more than anything else she has suffered ; because I cannot look 
upon the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lord God ; I think her breast has 
been wrenched with it; she is almost an enthusiast on the subject of the 
divinity of her Saviour. 

Q. You think her a Christian, do you? A. Yes; she is the best 
Christian I know of, barring her faults ; better than any minister. 

Q. Well, on the whole, do }^ou not think that she is about as white as 
most Christians? A. Yes, whiter than ourselves. 



152 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Q. Then you would not qualify the expression when you say that she 
is the best Christian you know, barring her faults ? Do not you think 
that she is the best Christian you know with her faults ? A. No, I 
would not say that, because there has been a strong deceit wrought out 
in Elizabeth that comes from the weakness of her character ; she has 
had three strong persons to circulate among — Mr. Beecher, her mother 
and me ; in sentiment she outdoes us all ; her life is shipwrecked, but she 
is not to blame; I will maintain that to my dying day. 

Q. Do not you know that in these exigencies she sought consolation 
from her pastor ? A. I think she did ; and he took advantage of her 
orthodox views to make them the net and the mesh in which he en- 
snared her, and for which I hold him in a contempt which no English 
words can describe. 

Q. The change of your religious views has been the subject of a great 
deal of conversation and anguish and labor on her pari, lias it not ? A. 
Oh, yes — of letters and prayers and tears and entreaties, many a time 
and oft. 

Q. When you say that this has been the tiling which has enabled her 
to be ensnared, do you mean by that that you think that was the cause 
why, in some degree, her confidence in the judgment and advice of her 
pastor was increased, and why your influence over her was lessened ? A. 
Oh, yes ; largely so, thoroughly so. 

Q. Then when you found that she was leaning more strongly than 
formerly on the advice and consolation of her pastor, and less on your 
own, you attributed it naturally to your change in religious sentiments? 
A. Yes ; at the same time 1 did not want Elizabeth to hold my view ; I 
said she might be a Catholic or a Mohammedan. 

Q. Did she not feel that your views wore a source of danger to the 
children ? A. Yes ; she would not let the children have playthings on 
Sunday ; John G. Whittier came to our house (lie appointed the time), 
and Mr. Greeley, and met Mr. Johnson; and it almost broke Elizabeth's 
heart to think that the best man in New England, whom she reverenced, 
should have appointed Sunday night; she never received visitors on 
Sunday. 

Q. Is it not a feature in her character that she has great reverence for 
those men whom she believes to be pure in life, and noble in thought 
and spirit ? A. Yes ; she would kiss the hem of their garments. 

Q. That is a marked feature of her character, is it not? A. Uncom- 
monly so. 

Q. Does it not almost go to the extent of idolatry in one sense ? A. 
Well, no; there are a great many women who look upon a man with a 
sense of worship ; Elizabeth never did that ; Elizabeth is the peer of 
any man ; at the same time she reverences; it was not vanity — it was 
reverence; she never regarded Mr. Beecher as a silly woman regards 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 153 

him ; she was not a silly woman taken captive ; she was a wise, good 
woman taken captive ; there are a great many people, particularly 
women, who, if President Grant should call on them, would feel greatly 
flattered ; I do not think she would ; but if she regarded President Grant 
as a man of high religious nature, coming with the Gospel in his hand, 
and devoted to evangelical religion, then, whether he were famous or 
lowly, she would reverence him. 

Q. So must there not be connected with her reverence the idea of ab- 
solute purity of life, as well as of religious character ? A. Yes, I think 
Elizabeth regarded Mr. Beecher, in early days, as the essence of all that 
was religious, apostolic ; I thing she looked upon him very much as she 
would look upon the Apostle Paul. 

Q. And you understood that ? A. Yes, and in fact looked upon him 
so in my early life ; I loved that man as well as I ever loved a woman. 

Q. And is it not true that there is nothing that your wife so much 
abhors in man or woman as impurity ? A. Exactly so. 

Q. The fact that she believed that any persons were impure, however, 
if it were otherwise, she might reverence them, would destroy her re- 
spect and reverence for them, would it not? A. It would in those days. 
[Here Mr. Tilton gave in illustration the instance of a gentleman who 
his wife felt had insulted her by saying that he sympathized with her, 
and hoped that she would lift up her head in self-respect, remarking that 
Tilton's chief temptation had been temptation to the sin of the sexes.] 
Mr. Tilton resuming : I do not think he did it vindictively, but the fact 
that he could have done it at all burned in her blood. 

Q. Was she not distressed at any suggestion of impropriety ? A. She 
was particularly so ; and she is more so now than ever, because in her 
early days such a thought was never in her mind ; but when it had 
passed through her experience it came out with this contrition ; I think 
that hers is one of the white souls ; that is the truth of the case ; she 
never ought to have been taken away from her home; you, gentlemen, 
did it ; you did it, Mr. Tracy ; " Thou art the man." 

Q. Will you state more distinctly than you have done what you 
understood by that letter of February 3, 1868, in which she says : — 
" Love is praiseworthy, but to abuse the gift is sin. There I am strong. 
No temptation or fascination could cause me to yield my woman- 
hood?" A. I quoted that letter to show how strong her views were at 
that time. 

Q. Did you quote it for the purpose of showing that at that time she 
was being tempted? A. I have heard her say the substance of that 
over and over again. 

Q. When? A. I do not know when ; a long time ago, years ago, 
when he (Mr. Beecher) used to go there ; it was not because I had any 
suspicion of him then ; Elizabeth always felt that when Mr. Beecher 



154 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

went to such and such a place, there were women that would flatter 
him ; I do not think she did at all ; she has always been a stickler for 
the honor of her sex ; she said to herself, " 1 will represent my sex." 

Q. In other words, she wanted to show him purity of sentiment, and 
of communion of mind without passion ? A. That is what she meant, 
I think. 

Q. That is what you understood her to mean? A. That is exactly 
what I understood her to mean. 

Q. For years ? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. That is the way you looked upon the relation between them for 
years ? A. I ought to say for the earlier years. 

Q. When did you first bring to your wile's attention the fact that you 
feared that there was something wrong ? A. Elizabeth so blotted that 
out of my mind that I did not think of it again. 

Q. How long ago was it? Years ago? A. Yes, as I recollect it, it 
must have been during the early years when we lived in Livingston 
street, in our present house. 

Q. How long have you lived there? A. I do not know. 

Mr. Winslow — About ten years, I remember. 

General Tracy — It was a great many years ago? A. Yes. 

Q. Was it before 1868 ? A. Long before. 

Mr. Claflin — In '64, probably. 

General Tracy— Was it before 1865 ? A. About 1862. 

Q. Where did you live at the beginning of the war? A. I am very 
much ashamed that I am never able to answer such a question. 

Q. You say that it was in the early years of your living at No. 174 
Livingston street ? A. Yes ; pictures are vivid to me, and I remember 
where Elizabeth was sitting in the corner of my parlor; I spoke to her 
about it when we came home. 

Q. How long since was it that you have mentioned that subject to 
any one until you put it in this communication ? A. She blotted it out 
of my mind. 

Q. Did you ever speak of it to any one? A. She blotted out all 
wrong as concerning her in the circumstance. 

Q. You never mentioned it to Mr. Beecher ? A. I was very young 
in those days and utterly unsuspicious of such things, and when I spoke 
to her about it, she was a little confused and denied it ; and then said it 
was so, but that she had said, "You must not do that :" I had in those 
days something of the same reverence for Mr. Beecher that I have since 
so eminently lost. 

THE LIBRARY SCENE. 

Q. Do you know who was present besides your wife and Mr. Beecher ? 
A. Nobody. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 155 

Q. There was nobody there but you three — you were looking at 
engravings ? A. Yes. 

By Mr. Winslow — Were you sitting on the floor ? A. Not the whole 
of the time : I remember that those two were sitting down on the floor 
with the pictures ; I am a restless sort of man, and I do not know 
where I was ; it was a long time ago. 

Q. Do you say that you saw it with your own eyes ? A. With my 
own eyes. 

Q. Do you remember whether Mr. Beecher looked at you first ? A. 
No ; he did not know that I noticed it ; I was standing up, I think ; I 
have to bring up the picture in my mind ; I do not remember exactly 
whether I was standing or sitting ; perhaps I was in a chair ; I know 
that there was a kind of portfolio folded out, and that the pictures were 
folded down (indicating with the hands) ; she was sitting on the floor or 
on a stool, and he on the floor. 

Q. Were you where he could see you ? A. ITe was looking at the 
pictures. 

Q. If he had looked up, w-ould he have seen you? A. Yes. 

By General Tracy — You. were looking at some pictures in the room ? 
A. Yes ; these things were on her lap. 

Q. What part of her person did he touch? A. Her ankles and lower 
limbs. 

By Mr. Winslow — Not above the knee ? A. No. If he had he proba- 
bly would have been struck ; it was a question in my mind whether a 
minister could consider that a proper sort of caress. 

Q. Was it done slyly ? A. Yes, very slyly ; his right or left arm was 
under her dress. 

By General Tract — How were they sitting ? A. My impression is 
that she was sitting on some little stool, and he on the floor by her side, 
and that some pictures were, perhaps, put up against the chair and 
folded, and that it was by an accidental brushing up of her dress that I 
saw his hand on her ankle. 

Q. Do you know whether it was accidental or casual with him ? A. 
I only know that I asked her. 

Q. Could you know whether it was accidental or intentional ? A. I 
spoke of it to her; she at first denied i,t and then confessed it, and said 
that she had chidden him ; I did not attach much importance to it after 
the explanation was made. 

Q. You were in doubt whether it was intentional or accidental ? A. 
It was merely a suspicion. 

THE BEDCHAMBER SCENE. 

Q. How about the bedchamber scene ? A. That was a long while 
ago, and that was blotted out of my mind too. 



156 THE TRUE HISTOEY OF 

Q. When was it ? A. I do not remember the year ; it was a good 
while ago. 

By Mr. Winslow — Before or after the ankle scene ? A. Before. 

Q. How long ? A. I do not know. 

Q. Before 1808 ? A. I do not know. 

Q. After you were living in Livingston street? A. Yes; I remember 
the room ; again, I identify it by the picture ; it was in the left hand 
room ; I have two front rooms on the second story, and it was the left 
hand of these two rooms ; I knocked at the door and Elizabeth came ; I 
was surprised that it was locked ; she was surprised at finding me ; Mr. 
Beecher was sitting in a red plush rocking chair — a sort of Ottoman 
chair — with his vest unbuttoned ; his face colored like a rose when I 
saw him. 

Q. How long ago was that ? A. I do not know. 

Q. How long had you lived in Livingston street at this time ? A. Do 
not remember. 

Q. Had you lived there for two or three years ? A. That I do not 
know; I should say I had lived there, perhaps, two years. 

Q. Was it during the war ? A. That I do not know. 

Q. Do you know whether it was before or after your visit to Fort 
Sumter? A. No. 

Q. The explanation was satisfactory to you on that occasion ? A. 
Entirely so. 

Q. So that yon let it be, and attributed nothing to it? A. Yes; I at- 
tributed nothing to it ; if the door had been simply shut, I should have 
thought nothing of it, but the door being locked, I wondered at it. 

Q. Was there more than one door leading to that room ? A. One 
door comes in from the hall. 

Q. Was there any other door leading into the room from the other 
room ? A. There is a middle door communicating between the two 
rooms. 

Q. Two sliding doors ? A. Yes. 

Q. And was there a door leading from the hall to the other room ? 
A. Yes ; that is the plan of the house. 

Q. And the room that Mr. Beecher and your wife were in was a room 
communicating with another room with sliding doors ? A. Yes. 

Q. What was that room used for that Mr. Beecher was in ? A. A 
bedroom. 

Q. Was there a bed in it ? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Is the other room a sitting-room ? A. It is. 

Q. Did you try that door which led into the sitting-room ? A. No. 

Q. Why? A. Because I came and knocked at the hall door. 

Q. For aught you know, they had gone into the sitting-room from the 
hall, and from there Mr. Beecher may have gone into the bedroom? 
A. Yes ; I will give them the benefit of the doubt. 






THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 157 

THE SATISFACTORY EXPLANATION. 

Q. Was it explained to your satisfaction ? A. Yes. 

Q. What was the explanation that satisfied you? A. The annoyance 
of the children ; my wife said that our children and some of the neigh- 
bors' children were making a noise, and she wanted to have a quiet talk 
with Mr. Beecher, and so she locked herself in. 

Q. That satisfied you? A. That satisfied me; it was entirely reason- 
able ; I only quote it as a suspicion. 

Q. Do you remember whether the sliding doors leading from this 
room to the sitting-room were open? A. They were shut; I remember 
it because I looked in ; I saw the two white doors coming together ; the 
picture is distinct to my mind ; I do not forget pictures. 

By Mr. Claflin — Was the door opened immediately? A. Yes; I 
do not want you to think that I thought there was anything wrong at 
that interview at all. 

Q. The picture of the room was the only reason you have for believ- 
ing that the sitting-room door was shut? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did the explanation so satisfy you that that thing was blotted 
from your remembrance ? A. Yes. 

Q. So you have never regarded that circumstance as evidence of 
wrong in any one ? A. No. 

Q. Have you ever mentioned that ? A. I rather think I have. 

Q. Why? A. Because afterwards there arose circumstances which 
made me feel that the explanation which she had given of these two 
events was not true. 

By Mr. Winslow — To whom did you state it? A. I think to my 
mother; I do not recollect; I never made any blazonry of it, you know, 
abroad ; I never thought, really, that there was any wrong in it until in 
the light of subsequent events ; I do not say now that there was any 
wrong in it; Elizabeth always denied stoutly to me that anything wrong 
had taken place at that time. 

Q. What kind of a room was that sitting-room ? A. It was the com- 
mon sitting-room of the house. 

Q. The right hand part was the sitting-room, and the left hand part 
was a bedroom communicating with it by sliding doors ? A. Yes. 

Q. That is where you receive your intimate friends? A. Yes. 

Q. If you had found Mr. Beecher with your wife in the sitting-room, 
you would have found him where you should have expected to find him, 
would you not ? A. Yes. 

Q. If the door had not been locked, you would not have thought any- 
thing of it ? A. No ; I should have been happy to have seen him ; we 
were in the best possible relations in those days ; nobody was a more 
welcome guest at our house than he. 

Q. Now, Mr. Tilton, can you say whether this scene was before the 



158 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

date of that letter of February 3, 1868 ? A. Yes, it must have been a 
long time before that, I think; I won't be certain; it must have been a 
long time before 1868. 

Q. You say that her letters informed you that Mr. Beecher had made 
twelve pastoral visits at your house in five weeks ? A. I have those 
letters. 

By Mr. Hill— You have all the letters from which you say you dis- 
covered that the twelve visits were made when you were away? 
A. Yes. 

Q. And those you will produce ? A. I think that perhaps I will. 

By General Tracy— It was written here (in Mr. Tilton's communica- 
tion) six and changed to five weeks— which is correct ? A. (after some 
explanations.) It is correct as it is there. 

Q. You say, Mr. Tilton, for a year after what you state as Mrs. Til- 
ton's confession, she insisted to you that she had not violated her 
marriage vow ? A. Yes ; Elizabeth was in a sort of vaporous-like cloud ; 
she was between light and dark; she could not see that it was wrong; 
she maintained to her mother in my presence that she had not done 
wrong ; she cannot bear to do wrong ; a sense of having done wrong is 
enough to crush her ; she naturally seeks for her own peace a conscien- 
tious verdict ; she never would have had these relations if she had sup- 
posed at that time that they were wrong ; Elizabeth never does any- 
thing that at the time seems wrong; for such a large moral nature, 
there is a lack of a certain balance and equipoise; she has not a will 
that guides and restrains ; but Elizabeth never does at any time that 
which does not have the stamp of her conscience at the time upon it. 

Q. Do you say that she did or did not insist that she had violated her 
marriage vows ? A. She always was saying that " it never seemed to 
her wrong ; " and " Theodore, I do not now see that I have wronged 
you." 

Q,. What do you understand her as meaning by "To love is praise- 
worthy, but the abuse of love is sin ? " A. I rather think she meant 
carrying love to too great an extent. 

Q. Would not that include criminal relations ? A. Yes. 

Q. Then you understand her, as early as 1868, as saying that the 
abuse of the gift of love by adultery would be a sin? A. Yes. 

Q. She is a lady of intelligence, is she not? A. She is in some 
respects a lady of extraordinary intelligence; she has a remarkable 
gift at times which anybody might envy ; there is nothing low about 
Elizabeth. 

Q. Is she a lady of large reading ? A. There are very few r ladies of 
larger reading; she was educated at the Packer Institute; I do not 
think she took quite a full course ; she reads much to her blind aunt 
and to the children ; I used to read a good deal to her ; she was a good 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 159 

critic ; Mr. Beecher carried to her sheets of his " Life of Christ " and 
many chapters of " Norwood ; " I used to read to her many things. 

Q. What do you say about the " Life of Christ " and " Norwood " — 
that he carried them to her to criticise ? A. Yes, or not exactly to 
criticise ; she is not a critic in the sense that she can take a particular 
phrase and change the language of it ; but she could tell whether a 
little speech put into Rose Wentworth's mouth was one a woman would 
be likely to say. 

Q. He took those chapters to read to her for that purpose, having a 
high regard for her opinion in that matter — not as high regard for her 
opinion in a strictly critical sense ? A. No ; but in the sense whether 
it was womanly, and larger than that, whether it touched human 
sympathy or not. I remember that he took her the first sheet of the 
" Life of Christ ; " she wrote to me saying, " He said he had not read it 
to anybody else." 

Q. When did he write " Norwood ? " A. I do not know. 

Q. When did he write his first volume of his "Life of Christ?" 
A. It was after " Norwood," I think. 

Q. It was published after "Norwood?" A. I do not know about 
that. 

Q. You know he took it to her to read ? A. I know, because she 
wrote it in her letters ; I believe she told the truth ; yon ask about 
" Norwood " and the " Life of Christ ; " he had brought the opening 
part of the " Life of Christ," and I think also chapters of " Norwood." 

Q. You understand that he brought them to her for the purpose of 
criticism? A. Yes. 

Q. You yourself would regard her as an admirable critic ? A. Oh, 
yes; I always liked to take everything I wrote to Elizabeth; sometimes 
when I thought I had written anything particularly nice I ran down 
and read it to her ; she w r as one. of the best of critics ; she never praised 
an article because it was mine or his, but only when she liked it. 

Q. You found her judgment not warped by her affections in that ? 
A. No, that is the particular feature of her character ; if a lady was 
sitting at the piano and playing, and Elizabeth loved that lady very 
much, she would tell her about the playing — that it was good, or that 
it was not — but she would not say that the playing was good because 
she loved the woman ; she would not say so unless it was good ; I was 
also quite certain that if Elizabeth liked what I wrote she did not like it 
on my account, though she was glad when I wrote a good thing; it was 
an honest criticism ; if I had been a minister none of this trouble would 
have come; she was always in sorrow that I was not a minister — which 
is the only virtue that I possess ; thank God that I do not belong to 
the priesthood or the church; it may not bean acceptable statement 
to the committee. 



ICO THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Q. Do you mean by that, Mr. Tilton, that the want of strong- religious 
feature in your character was what she missed in you? A. No, Mr. 
Tracy, it was not that; because, though I should not like to say it 
of myself, yet I am a more religious man than most men of my ac- 
quaintance — that is, I am a man of religious sympathies, who thoroughly 
hates and despises religious creeds ; I do not believe in one of the thirty- 
nine articles, nor in cither of the Catechisms, nor in the divinity injunc- 
tion of the Scriptures, nor in the divinity of Christ, in the sense in 
which it is held. I believe his writings to be enflooded by the Divine 
breath. It was not that I lack religious spirit. A man ought not to 
say that, perhaps, of himself, but I do not lack the religious spirit; I 
love God, and am fond of religious sentiment, but I hate the creeds; I 
was taught to hate them during the anti-slavery controversy; I saw the 
churches selling negroes, and I despise a church ; now put it down there 
(to a reporter) ; say that I despise the church, and generally despise 
ministers. 

Q. Well, it was that lack of reverence for the church and its ordi- 
nances and your lack of belief in the divinity of Christ as she held it 
that she missed in you? A. Yes. 

Q. And she grieved over it ? A. Oh, yes, indeed ; grieved over it 
with tears. 

Q. And what she found wanting in you she found in Mr. Beecher, did 
she not? A. Yes, she did, and he took advantage of it; that is why I 
say he ought to spend the rest of his life in penitence and anguish; if 
Mr. Beecher had held the same religious views that I hold, and gone to 
that house denying the divinity of Christ, he never could have made 
any approach to her, and the affection and love which she bore to him 
would never have existed — I mean the strong affection — it could not 
possibly have done so. 

Q. The enthusiasm for him which she felt would never have existed 
in that case ? A. No. 

Q. You have no doubt that it was that feature in his character which 
roused her enthusiasm and made him to her a sort of poem, did it not? 
A. Yes, a sort of apostle ; I think she regarded Mr. Beecher almost as 
though Jesus Christ himself had walked in; that is an extravagant 
expression, but you must not take it literally; I know that she wanted 
to make the children look upon the clergy with reverence ; she ought 
to be an intense Roman Catholic, like Mme. Guion — a mystic ; I think 
she certainly spends hours on her knees some days ; I don't suppose a 
day ever passes over Elizabeth that the sun, if he could peep through 
the windows, would not see her on her knees, and my oldest daughter, 
Florence, though she looks like me, is like her mother ; here has come 
this great calamity on my house ; there was that publication last night; 
she saw it ; and this morning what did she do? I heard a noise in the 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 161 

house, and found that she was down in the front parlor playing on the 
melodeon like a heroine, standing in the midst of this calamity like a 
rock in the sea; she gets that somewhat from me; I can stand all 
storms ; she gets also from her mother the religious inspiration ; Flor- 
ence this morning had a genius for religion, when you would suppose 
that she would have been crushed ; you (General Tracy) are not 
stronger in the court room than she was this morning at that musical 
instrument. 

Q. You use the expression in regard to your daughter "genius for 
religion; " does not that express the character of your wife ? A. Yes — 
even more so ; my daughter is more intellectual ; she is an abler and 
more stable woman, though not so sentimental, and less demonstrative ; 
they are both great characters. 

Q. Well, she is a character who could have an intimacy and reverence 
and enthusiasm for a man of Mr. Beccher's temperament and religious 
convictions and teaching and carry it to an extreme length without the 
thought of passion or criminality ? A. I do not think the thoughts of 
passion and of criminality were in her breast at all ; I think they were 
altogether in his ; I think she thought only of her love and reverence. 

Q. Such a character would not excite the thought of jealous}' as to 
her ? A. Not in the slightest ; I never had the slightest feeling of jeal- 
ousy in regard to Elizabeth. 

Q. The fact that she was manifesting this enthusiasm and all that 
would not lead you to suspect her motives and purity originally ? A. It 
would not; later it did. 

Q. For how long a period ? A. I do not know ; I remember I wrote 
her some letters which, if she has kept them, would fix the date ; there 
was a time when I felt that Mr. Beecher was using his influence greatly 
upon her. 

Q. To control her in her domestic relations with you ? A. No, but 
to win her ; he was always trying to get her to say that she loved him 
better than me. 

Q. She never would say it ? A. I don't think she ever did. 

Q. You do not believe she ever felt or believed it, do you ? A. No ; 
that is to say, in one sense she loved him ; she loved his religious views, 
she loved him as an evangelical minister ; but I don't think that on the 
whole he was as much to her as I was ; still, of course, Mr. Tracy, I can- 
not question her motives ; if she should say he was more to her than I 
was I cannot dispute it. 

Q. You set out a letter that she wrote on the night of December 30, 
after you returned to your house, referring to the retraction she had 
given to Mr. Beecher ; did she write that letter or did you ? A. She 
wrote it. 

Q. Did you dictate it ? A. No. 
11 



1G2 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Q. Why did she write it ? A. Because I asked her to make a calm 
statement of what she had designed in this letter to Mr. Beecher. She 
was in such a state of agony that she told me she could not recall her 
letter to him ; she said she had given him this letter that he might 
fortify himself in a council of ministers ; I asked her to take a pen at the 
end of the evening and give the exact circumstances and explain what 
she meant by it, and she wrote that letter ; it was only the next day 
that the other letter came back, and then this one ceased to be of any 
importance; what struck me in that business as so -damnable in Mr. 
Beecher was that after coming and confessing to me and Mr. Moulton 
his criminal relations with Mrs. Tilton, and then asking to see her a few 
minutes, and going around the corner to see her, he should have come back 
again in half an hour, expressing his absolute heartbrokenness, whereas 
he had in his pocket this retraction from her; I say it was damnable and 
nefarious. 

Q. Do you say that when you saw Mr. Beecher at Mr. Moulton's 
house Mr. Moulton was present? A. Yes, he was present in this way 
— I wanted a lengthy interview with Mr. Beecher alone, and when he 
came into the room I locked the door and put the key in my pocket, 
and narrated in order Elizabeth's confession; it was a long one, and it 
would have been indelicate for me to touch it with any more elabora- 
tion than I have here ; I do not wish to be questioned about it ; it was a 
long story. 

Q. Was Mr. Moulton present ? A. Not at that part of the interview ; 
after the door was opened he was; the interview that we three together 
had was very short ; I was on the stairs while Mr. Beecher talked with 
Mr. Moulton on the stairs; that interview was to bring me and Mr. 
Beecher together; the next time we all three had an interview. 

Q. This retraction, you say in your communication, Mr. Beecher re- 
turned to you through Mr. Moulton ; is that true ? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Was that retraction ever delivered to you? A. I have got 
it now. 

Q. Is it not in the possession of Mr. Moulton ? A. Yes, but it be- 
longs to me ; Mr. Moulton had a safe place and I had not, and he has 
some of my papers. 

Q. Do you mean to say that Mr. Moulton delivered that retraction to 
your actual keeping, and that you have had possession of it for any 
length of time? A. He did deliver it to me, and it was sent back to 
him. 

Q. I ask you whether Mr. Moulton delivered that retraction to you 
and you kept it? A. Mr. Moulton put that retraction into my hand ; 
exactly what I did with it — whether I carried it to my safe or not — I do 
not remember ; I took a number of papers and put them in his keeping 
because I had no safe place. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 163 

Q. How long do you think you had possession of that paper ? A. I 
do not remember ; I never saw the retraction till it was brought back to 
me ; then I read it ; it may be that I never took it away from Mr. 
Moulton's house ; it was sent back to me ; it was put into my hand ; I 
read it, and I made a copy of it. 

Q. In shorthand ? A. Yes. 

Q. Did you ever have it longer than that ? A. Yes ; long enough to 
make forty copies in shorthand. 

Q. But you returned it to Mr. Moulton, and he has kept it and has it 
now ? A. Yes ; unless he has been robbed. 

Q. The letter which you say Mr. Beecher wrote Mrs. Tilton, with your 
permission, I see, as published, directs her to return it to him through 
your hands ? A. Yes. 

Q. Was it returned to him through your hands ? A. It was returned 
to Mr. Moulton by me. 

Q. Did you make a copy of it? A. I did. 

Q. Then you took advantage of Mr. Beecher's direction to have that 
letter returned to him through your hands, to make a copy, and you 
made and preserved a copy of the letter? A. I did, exactly; and I 
have found a very good use for it in this late emergency. 

Q. What you call the " apology " — is that in Mr. Beecher's hand- 
writing ? A. It is not. 

Q. In whose handwriting is it ? A. In Francis D. Moulton's, except 
the last sentence, which is Mr. Beecher's. 

Q. " I trust this to Moulton in confidence," is in Mr. Beecher's hand- 
writing, is it not ? A. Yes. 

Q. The words " in confidence " are underscored, are they not ? A. I 
do not know. 

Q. That document is written on how many half sheets of paper ? 
A. I do not think on any ; it is on sheets as big as that (legal cap). 

Q. On how many — two or three ? A. Yes, large sheets. 

Q. Do you know whether the last sentence, " I trust this to Moulton 
in confidence," is separated by a wide space from the rest? A. I do not 
know ; Frank can show it to you. 

Q. Is it not separated by a wide space ? A. No, not by a wide space. 

Q. I ask you whether the last sentence of the letter is not here some- 
where (indicating with the hand), and the line " I trust this to Moulton 
in confidence, H. W. Beecher," down there (indicating) ? A. No, it is 
not. 

Q. Is it not at the bottom of the page ? A. It may be at the bottom 
of the page. 

Q. Is it not away from the writing ? A. No, it is not ; it is a part of 
the letter. 

Q. You were not present when it was written ? A. No ; otherwise it 
would not have been written. 



164 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Q. Because it would have been spoken ? A. Yes, the substance was 
spoken to me a day or two afterwards in Mr. Moulton's bedchamber. 

Q. You say if you had been present it would not have been written f 
A. Yes. 

Q. That letter is not addressed to you, is it ? A. It was addressed to 
Mr. Moulton, but it was brought to me on the authority of Mr. Beecher 
himself; it was brought to me greatly to my surprise ; Mr. Moulton put 
it before me as evidence that I should maintain peace ; I did not ask for 
it ; it came unsolicited. 

Q. You quote a letter dated on the 7th of January to you from Mr. 
Beecher. Was your suit with Bowen then pending ? A. My suit with 
Bowen was pending from the first of January to the middle of the next 
year ; I think it was in April, 1872 ; I never sued him ; Mr. Moulton 
wanted to assume the management of my affairs with Mr. Bowen; Mr. 
Moulton, when sick, summoned us to him, and said, " I want to keep 
you on record, and bind you to good-will." 

Q. You had a controversy ? A. I had a controversy ; I agreed not 
to do anything but at Mr. Moulton's discretion ; Mr. Bowen owed me 
$7000, and Frank said, " He has got to pay that ; but I would rather 
pay it myself than that it should bring Mr. Beecher in collision, and I 
will agree that you shall have it, if I have to pay it myself; " therefore, 
let this thing remain with me as long as I like— a year or ten years. 
Frank was determined that peace should be kept. 

Q. Were there any proceedings to perpetuate testimony taken ? A. 
Frank thought Mr. Bowen ought to come to a settlement, and said, " I 
think I will put this in court ; " and Mr. Ward instituted some proceed- 
ings ; it was the mere suggestion of a suit, done without my knowledge ; I 
think it was to perpetuate Mr. Johnson's testimony ; I have forgotten. 

Q. That was in 1872 ? A. Yes, it must have been in March. 

Q. You say you put the management of your matter against Bowen 
in the hands of Moulton ? A. I did. 

Q. Did not he represent to you that it was absolutely indispensable 
or material that you and Mr. Beecher should keep on friendly terms in 
reference to this controversy with Bowen? A. No. The sum and 
essence of his management was the management of my relations to 
Mr. Beecher; he regarded Mr. Bowen as an incident ; I could not afford 
to lose my office, and Mr. Moulton said, " You have got to keep peace 
with Mr. Beecher for the sake of yourself and family ; " Mr. Moulton 
always made Mr. Bowen subsidiary to Mr. Beecher — and me also, till I 
revolted, after Dr. Bacon's letter. 

Q. Do you mean to say that it was never regarded as important that 
friendly relations should be maintained between you and Mr. Beecher, 
having reference to your difficulty with Bowen? A. Not a particle; 
the more I quarrelled with Mr. Beecher, the better Mr. Bowen liked it ; 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 165 

if, as a result of the controversy, Mr. Beecher should be dead, Mr. 
Bo wen would not be one of the mourners, but one that would uplift 
the horn of gladness ; he never wanted peace with Mr. Beecher ; he 
always wanted war with Mr. Beecher ; he is an enemy of Mr. Beecher, 
and would rejoice in his downfall; perhaps I ought not to say that; it is 
speaking of the motives of people, but it is true. 

Q. The tripartite treaty was not signed until after February 7, 
1871? A. No. 

Q. Was not your letter to Mr. Moulton of that date written for the 
purpose of calling out a reply from him ? A. No ; I wrote it because 
Frank insisted upon it ; Frank had the idea that if I gave my word he 
would have me bound ; he wanted me to write the utmost of what I 
could of good-will in this letter. 

Q. And did he get a corresponding answer from Mr. Beecher ? 
A. Perhaps so ; I do not think that he informed me that he was going 
to get an answer from Mr. Beecher. 

Q. He informed you that he had got an answer from him afterward, 
did he not ? A. Yes, he showed it to me and I copied it. 

Q. Bo you say that your letter was not written in order to draw cut 
an answer from Mr. Beecher? A. No; I wrote it to please Frank, 
because he wanted me to ; perhaps there may be a sense in which I was 
to write what I could of good-will, and Mr. Beecher what he could of 
good-will ; perhaps there may be correctness in your phrase ; there was 
no collusion on my part with Mr. Beecher ; it was Mr. Moulton's iron- 
like way of compelling things to go on in peace and harmony ; he is a 
man of desperate strength of will. 

Q. Now, will you produce all the letters which you quote on pages 
113 and 114 of your communication, beginning, " My dear Frank, I am 
determined to make no more resistance. Theodore's temperament is 
such that the future, even if temporarily earned, would be absolutely 
worthless, and rendering me liable at any time of day ? " etc. A. I 
cannot ; Mr. Moulton can. 

Q. Have you a copy of it ? A. Yes, I think I am not wrong. 

Q. Can you produce a copy ? A. I do not know ; I am sorry I can- 
not tell you; I have amass of phonographic notes; whenever these 
letters came, whenever there was anything in them that Frank wanted 
me to see, he would read them to me ; whenever Mr. Beecher said any- 
thing that he thought, being read to me, would gratify my feelings and 
conduce to a compromise or peace between us, speaking of the kindness 
with which I treated him, or of his difficulties, Frank read them to me, 
and as I wrote shorthand, I always used to make a copy of them. 

Q. And is that the only copy that you have of these papers ? A. It 
is the only copy I have of Frank's papers. 

Q. Copies in shorthand being read and never being compared with 



166 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

the originals ? A. When Frank read to me three or four or five sen- 
tences I would write them down. 

By Mr. Hall — Did you compare them with the originals ? A. What 
do you mean by comparing them with the originals ? 

Q. Do you know that they are an exact transcript of the originals ? 
A. Yes. 

Q. You wrote them from your phonographic notes ? A. You will 
find these extracts all perfectly correct — every one, absolutely. 

By Mr. Wixslow — Do you remember the purport of what you left 
out? A. My impression is that this one of Mr. Beecher's letters to 
Frank was very long ; it would certainly occupy four pages of a sheet of 
foolscap ; there was a long argument in it to show the difficulties that 
he was in ; if I had quoted the whole it would have made this state- 
ment much stronger, but it would have made it a cumbered document. 

Q. Is there something that you have not quoted ? A. A great deal ; 
but there is nothing in that quotation that violates the whole spirit of 
the letter. 

Q. Had you no reason for admitting what you did except to avoid 
length ? A. No ; only it alluded to interviews ; for instance, in this 
way : — " I am greatly distressed with what the deacon said," or " The 
Brooklyn Eagle must not go on in this way ; " many things might be 
added that are unimportant in this exhibit but that were important at 
the time. 

Q. On page 103, " No man can see the difficulties that environ me," 
etc., did you quote the whole of that letter ? A. Only a fragment of 
it ; there is not a whole letter in all these quotations. 

Q. In making these quotations I see no stars ? A. I do not know 
whether it is the omission of the printer, but I put in stars to show 
where the connection was broken off; where I took a paragraph which 
was long and it was continuous from beginning to end there is no need 
of stars. 

Q. Your letter. "To a Complaining Friend," that was published, to 
whom was that written ? A. That was written to nobody : everybody 
was saying, " You ought to answer the Woodhull scandal," and I put 
my wits together to frame a possible answer. 

Q. Then you say that the letter " To a Complaining Friend " was a 
fiction? A. Yes, it was written on purpose as a public card. 

Q. How long after the Woodhull scandal was that ? A. It was pub- 
lished a long time after that date ; not longer than two or three weeks, 
I think, perhaps not ten days ; my impression is that it was not pub- 
lished until a long time after ; I thought I had written an ingenious card, 
but it did not amount to anything ; Wendell Phillips said, " It is a fine 
thing but for one thing; you ought to have said that your wife was not 
guilty; "but I could not say that, and the card went for nothing; it 



THE BBOOKLYX SCAXDAL. 167 

was one of a number of ingenious subterfuges ; I wrote it thinking thaf 
it would please Elizabeth ; I read it to her before it was printed and she 
liked it ; afterwards she spoke to me violently about it, and said it was 
another way of perpetuating the scandal. 

Q. And charged you with publishing it for that purpose ? A. No, 
not that. 

Q. But did not she say that the effect of that publication would 
be to perpetuate the scandal and revive it? A. Yes, after it was 
published. 

Q. The Woodhull scandal was dying out of the minds of the people, 
was it not, then, when that was published ? A. I think not ; I did not 
know the time when it was ; it is a death of which I have had no notice 
yet ; I thought I did a crafty thing in that card, but it failed. 

Q. I asked whether the Woodhull scandal was not dying out of the 
minds of the people, and whether it would not have died out but for 
that? A. Well, I don't know; you are a better judge of that than I 
am ; I think I heard less of it. 

Q. Do you not know that the publication of that letter revived the 
talk and the scandal ? A. Yes, yes ; everything revives the talk ; the 
appointment of an investigating committee revived it in the same way. 
in general terms. 

Q. What other publications have you made since the publication of 
the Woodhull scandal, and the letter "To a Complaining Friend," and 
the Bacon letter and letters to the Council? A. The letter " To a Coin- 
plaining Friend " was put in the Eagle with a ferocious comment ; if it 
had not been printed with a bad comment, I think it would have had a 
good effect ; but that letter did harm. 

Q. You mean to say, that it revived or perpetuated the scandal in- 
stead of allaying it ? A. It did harm in the sense that it purported to 
be a denial, looked as if it was meant for a denial which did not deny. 
and it left about this impression — that Mr. Tilton. a direct man. who 
knows what he means and could say it, if he could have denied this 
squarely would have done it ; the impression was that it was written to 
deny, but that it did not deny. 

Q. Did it not carry in it a strong implication of guilt? A. Well. 
perhaps in a sense you might inferentially say so ; I think you might 
say that ; I think if I had never said a word on the subject at all, from 
the beginning down, it would have been a great deal better. 

Q. The scandal would have died out long ago, would it not? It ha? 
only been kept alive by your writings ? A. I have acted like a fool. I 
admit. 

By Mr. Tracy — We all concede that, and do not need to call witnesses 
to prove it. 

Q. Xow, when the Council was in session, that took the form, did it 



1G8 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

not, of an ecclesiastical controversy, in which the scandal proper dropped 
out of sight ? A. There is no scandal proper. 

Q. Well, this scandal itself dropped out of sight, and the controversy 
was over an ecclesiastical question, was it not ? A. In a technical 
sense; but everybody said that that Council revived the business. 

Q. Did you know that your letters revived the scandal? A. Yes; or 
it did not need reviving — it had life in it. 

Q. Did not your letters to the Council largely call out the letters by 
Dr. Bacon ? A. I think Dr. Bacon took a sublime indifference to ray 
letters in the first place ; he sent them back from the Council ; I do not 
now recollect that there was any extract from my letters to the Council 
that was introduced at all by Dr. Bacon ; perhaps there was ; if he 
made any allusion at all to them it was a most unimportant one. 

Q. You knew that the effect of your letters to the Council would be 
to revive the scandal, did you not? A. No, I did not; I wrote them 
to vindicate myself; I did not care whether they revived the scandal 
or not. 

Q. Did not you know what the effect would be? A. I thought of 
vindicating myself; I had been attacked and I wrote a defence; the 
scandal had to take care of itself; I was not so tender toward the scan- 
dal that I should refrain from defending myself if it would revive it even. 

Q. That is evident. Mrs. Tilton's letter to you, quoted February 9, 
1868, and commencing, " Ah ! did angel ever love so grandly as my be- 
loved ! " In that letter, on page 164, this sentence occurs : " And the 
dear friends who love us." You originally wrote it, and you have erased 
" us " and put in " me." Do you know which is correct ? What is in 
the original ? A. I think it is " me ;" it is " me " (examining the first 
draft of the communication). 

Q. How came Mrs. Tilton to write that letter to Moulton, denying 
that she had ever thought of separating from you ? A. Frank, as soon 
as he undertook to make the compromise between us, undertook to 
straighten out whatever was wrong ; there was a story that Mrs. Morse 
set afloat about my being divorced, and Frank wrote a note to her, or 
went to see her, and she wrote this note. 

Q. Did not she write it at your suggestion? A. I do not think she 
did; I think she wrote it at Frank's suggestion; I had forgotten that 
letter until I found it among the papers. 

Mr. Hill — Did not you make any suggestion to her about writing 
that letter ? A. I do not recollect distinctly ; it may be that I did ; I 
do not know ; I co-operated with Frank. 

General Tracy — Has she not during this controversy signed letters 
that you have written for her ? A. No ; she wrote a letter to Dr. Storrs, 
a part of which I suggested the phraseology, of a delicate statement of 
her relations to Mr. Beecher, which, while it was not false, did not con- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 1G9 

vey more than half of the truth ; the remainder she wrote herself; she 
was going to state too much in it. 

Q. Is there any other letter that she has ever written at your dicta- 
tion, and signed after you had written it, in this controversy ? A. Well, 
I do not know ; I do not recollect any at present. 

Q. Do you remember a letter that she wrote Mr. Moulton, com- 
mencing "' Dear Francis, I told you a falsehood last night " ? A. I 
never saw it. 

Q. Do you remember that Mr. Moulton reported to you, on any occa- 
sion, that she had made a statement that what you claimed was her 
confession she had made at your solicitation and instance, and at a time 
when you were also confessing to her, or anything of that description, and 
that you were angry about it, and took Moulton to your house to have 
him see whether she would make such a statement or not, and that Mr. 
Moulton coming in and repeating the statement in your presence, you 
asked her whether she had ever said so, and she said she had not, and 
you turned to Moulton and said, "Then you see who is the liar ?" A. 
I do not remember any such phrase as that ; Frank Moulton said to 
me, as nearly as I can recollect (his memory is better than mine), that 
Elizabeth, in a mood of criticism on me (which she did not very often 
have), "had said that I had made to her confessions against myself cor- 
responding with the confession which she had made to me against her- 
self, which was not true ; and Frank asked her squarely if it was so. 

Q. Did he ask her or did you ? A. I do not remember. 

Q. What did she say? A. She said "No," and then Frank after- 
wards told me she said the opposite. 

Q. Now did you not know that the very next morning she wrote to 
Mr. Moulton a letter beginning, '• Dear Francis, I told you two false- 
hoods," and proceeded to say in substance, " the fact is when I am in 
the presence of Mr. Tilton he has such a control over rae that I am 
not responsible for what I say," or, " I am obliged to say whatever he 
wills that I should say ; but the truth is that I had .reported the story 
just as you had heard it"? A. I do not; I know that she had some 
conversations with him, which she reported to me as being greatly like 
a see-saw— saying one thing and unsaying it. 

Q. Have you ever had doubts of her sanity ? A. No. 

Q. Never? A. No, sir. 

Q. Have you ever threatened to put her in an asylum ? A. No. sir. 

Q. Have you ever circulated the story among her acquaintances or 
friends that she was becoming insane? A. No, but that her mother 
was ; there was one time about then when she was a little delirious. 

Q. "When ? A. I do not remember ; her mind wandered a little in 
sickness ; she has never had a taint of insanity ; you know we have a 
customary phrase, " You say an extravagant thing, my friend, you are 



170 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

insane;" that is the only possible way in which Elizabeth has been 
insane ; she is not insane at all. 

Q. Mr. Tilton, you have quoted the letters of your wife here to prove 
what the character of your home was in the beginning of 1868 and 
through 1868 ? A. I quoted them to show what it was previous to her 
surrender to him. 

Q. You have stated, Mr. Tilton, that there were acts of criminality, 
first at Mr. Beecher's house, and secondly, at your own house ; do you 
pretend to have a personal knowledge of those acts ? A. Only the 
knowledge of Mrs. Tilton's confession— that is all ; I was absent at 
the time. 

Q. Mr. Moulton was in college with you ? A. Yes. sir. 

Q. He has always been your friend from your college days ? A. Y"es, 
sir, and I hope he will be to the end of my life. 

Q. Your novel is dedicated to him ? A. Yes, but he has not done 
me the honor of reading it ; I will never dedicate another. 

Q. You say that you had not reported this scandal to the Woodhull 
women or woman ; but you do not deny that you had frequently spoken 
harshly of Mr. Beecher to her? A. Oh, not harshly; I have spoken 
often critically of him, but always with a view to have her do no harm 
to him ; I expressed my opinion about him. 

Q. How came she and Mr. Beecher to have an interview ? A. I do 
not remember the circumstances; I think Frank Moulton devised it; 
Mr. Beecher had a number of interviews with her at Frank's house and 
one at mine. 

Q. AVas not the object to get Mr. Beecher committed to her views 
of free love? A. No; to her views of the fourteenth and fifteenth 
amendments of woman's suffrage ; Mr. Butler and I championed it, 
and we wanted Mr. Beecher to do the same. 

Q. AVas it not to get him to preside at Steinway Hall ? A. That was 
not at my house but at Frank's ; I think at mine it was in regard to the 
fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. 

Q. Well, an effort was made to get him to preside there and introduce 
her at Steinway Hall, and an exposition of this scandal was threatened 
if he did not preside there? A. Frank received :i letter from Colonel 
Blood that he thought was a threat ; it angered Frank a good deal. 

By Mr. Winslow — Did you see the letter from Colonel Blood, in 
which it was threatened that this scandal would be exposed if Mr. 
Beecher did not preside at the Steinway Hall meeting? A. I do not 
think that is so ; if it was I did not know it ; I do not think there was 
any truth in it. 

Q. Mr. Beecher had been importuned to preside, had he not? A. Yes ; 
there came a note from Colonel Blood about the Woodhulls not being- 
received in some hotel ; they said it was because they were unpopular, 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 171 

and they wanted Mr. Beecher's help ; there was something in the letter 
which Frank regarded as unhandsome, and I knew he was angry, and 
expressed himself strongly about it, and said it looked like blackmail ; it 
was one of the first indications of their attempting to use us. 

Q. Do you not know that Mr. Beecher was threatened that in case he 
did not preside at that meeting this scandal should be published ? A. 
It is the first time that I have ever heard it suggested. 

Q. Was he not threatened by Mrs. Woodhull ? A. Not that I have 
any knowledge of. 

Q. Was not the very object of soliciting Mr. Beecher to preside at 
the Steinway Hall meeting on the part of you and Mr. Moulton, in order 
to place Mrs. Woodhull under obligation, so that she should not make 
the publication ? A. Precisely so : we did not know there was to be a 
publication ; we wanted to keep her on our side, and wanted to take 
every possible occasion to do it ; her husband had spent a considerable 
length of time to devise this Steinway Hall speech ; what it was about 
I do not know ; she gave Frank and me the proofs, and he put them in 
his drawer ; I never looked at them ; it was our folly that we did not, for 
I might have known what was in that speech ; she wanted Mr. Beecher 
to preside ; I told Mr. Beecher that however unpopular she was, he 
might go and preside, and I sketched a little sort of a speech (and I 
think Frank sketched one) that, if he could see his way to do it he 
might make: — "Fellow-citizens — Here is a woman who is going to 
speak. She will probably speak on what you do not believe ; but that 
is no reason why she should not be heard. It is because I disagree 
with her that I would introduce her. I like free speech. I have the 
honor of presenting her." I said to him that he was able to carry a little 
speech of that sort, and I felt that if he went and presided, it would put 
her under the same obligation to him as I fancied that I had put her 
under to me in writing her biography ; I considered that I had secured 
her good-will by writing that and other things, and I thought that if 
Mr. Beecher would do some signal service of that kind, which he could 
do and which would be noted as such, it would fix her under gratitude, 
and we would all be fixed ; Frank had done her some service ; Frank had 
been very friendly to her ; he had done her many services, and he had 
great respect for her. 

Q. You pressed that argument on Mr. Beecher? A. Yes, and Frank 
also. 

Q. As a matter of safety? A. Yes; I said, "Think it over, and if 
you find that you can, go and do it." 

Q. Do you know whether the letter from Colonel Blood had been re- 
ceived at that time ? A. I do not know. 

Q. Mr. Beecher rejected your arguments and refused to preside? A. 
He did not refuse, but said that if he saw his way clear he would come 
and let us know. 



172 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Q. But lie did not let you know ? A. He did not let us know. 

Q. And you presided instead ? A. I did not want to ; but I had no 
idea of what the speech was going to be. 

Q. Although the proofs were in your hands and you might have 
known? A. Yes; but I never did know ; the proof's had been brought 
to Frank's study ; I may have had the idea that they were for Mr. 
Beecher to see the speech ; but it was not the printed speech that did 
the damage ; it was the interjected remarks in response to the audience; 
she said violent things. 

Q. Had you written her life at that time? A. Yes, I had; I am 
pretty certain of it. 

Q. 'What other things had you done to put her under obligations ? 
A. I will tell you what I did ; I wrote that idea of the Fourteenth and 
Fifteenth Amendments, and spent three of the solidest weeks of my life 
in working it into an argument and printing it into a tract; it was her 
idea, but she did not know how to express it, and I worked it up in one 
of the most elaborate pieces of writing I ever did ; that was one of the 
great services ; the second was the writing of a sketch; then, also, when 
Senator Carpenter attacked that proposition, I made an elaborate reply. 

Q. You went to the meeting yourself, and deliberately intended to go ? 
A. No, I did not ; Frank came to the Golden Age office ; it rained and 
it was late, half-past seven o'clock, and I went to see who was to preside ; 
there was no expectation that I would preside at all ; we got there at ten 
minutes to eight o'clock, and the crowd was so great that we could not 
get in at the front way, and we went to the rear, and went into a large 
ante-room, and there was Mrs. AVoodhull, flushed and excited because 
there was not a brave man in the circle of the two cities to preside at 
her meeting ; Mr. Beecher did not come, and one or two others that had 
been invited were not there; she felt that there was no courage in men, 
and she was going on alone, and I said, " I will preside at your meeting; " 
it was not more than ten minutes — I do not believe five minutes — fore- 
thought ; I went on the platform and made a few remarks, and intro- 
duced her ; that was the way it came about. 

Q. You quote letters from your wife in 1868 to show the affection she 
bore you at that time, and then you say that in 1870 you thought you 
discovered that her mind was absorbed in Mr. Beecher to too great an 
extent. Between the beginning of 1868 and the spring of 1870, had 
there been any act on your part calculated to disturb the happiness of 
your home or alienate the affections of your wife ? A. Not that I re- 
member. 

Q. Had there been no affection of a marked character existing be- 
tween you and another lady which was calculated to disturb the happi- 
ness of a wife ? A. No. I think not. 

[Here followed a series of circumstantial inquiries concerning Mr. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 173 

Tilton's relations with different women, and equally circumstantial de- 
nials on his part of anything improper, or of a*ny connection between 
these stories and his wife's estrangement from him.] 

Q. Do you know that made charges against you, and that that 

was one of the reasons why Mr. Bowen discharged you ? A. I cannot 
say what operated on Mr. Bowen. 

Q. That was one of the things discussed, was it not ? A. Yes, the 
only thing discussed ; but, Mr. Tracy, I decline this examination ; you 
have introduced names here, and you must take the consequences ; 
there are charges against one of the names ; I took pains to introduce 
no names ; there are written charges made and filed concerning a lady 
whom you have named ; now, I do not take the responsibility of re- 
viving it. 

General Tracy — We have to mention names here, but I think they 
won't be mentioned in the record. 

Q. What was the character of the charges that made against 

you ? A. I never knew that made any until afterwards ; Mr. 

Bowen said there had been a story told prejudicial to me ; he would not 
tell me by whom, and he would not tell me the story ; T said, " If there 
is any story prejudicial to me, bring the person who tells the story face 
to face with me ; " Mr. Bowen said, " That is fair ; " after that I heard 
that she wrote a letter. 

Q. Was there any other lady that was in the habit of seeing you at 
your house ? A. If there was, do you suppose I would be little enough, 
as a gentleman, to name it ? I am not a minister. 

General Tracy — Then perhaps you might mention it ? A. I should 
not ; there are ladies that I know and honor, and I should scorn to 
answer such a question. 

Q. 1 asked you whether there were any other ladies who were in the 
habit of visiting your house, and whose visits disturbed the quiet and 
happiness of your wife ? A. You may ask her, and take her answer ; I 
scorn to answer ; Elizabeth shall have the benefit of any statement she 
pleases to make concerning any names ; this examination I understand 
the point of perfectly well ; there is no woman that I have respected or 
honored whom I have not brought to my house, which is not the prac- 
tice always of men in their relations with ladies ; if Elizabeth has been 
troubled concerning my attentions to any lady, take her testimony upon 
that subject. 

General Tracy — I will do that, and I shall do it, because you have 
brought into the controversy the character of your home ; you have 
said that her affections were alienated, and it is proper and essential 
that we should show that that was not the cause to which you attri- 
buted it. 

Mr. Ttlton — I say if Elizabeth's change of mind was due in her 



174 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

opinion to the fact that I had loves and affections for other ladies, take 
her testimony for that fact ; I will not deny her. 

Q. You are confident she will state the truth of that? A. She will 
state what she wants to have appear, and that she is welcome to. 

By Mr. Hill — Won't you say generally whether you had affections 
for other ladies which your wife knew of? No answer. 

By General Tracy — Do you refuse to be examined on that point ? 
A. No ; I don't refuse to be examined on that point. 

Q. Then state whether there are not other ladies who have been inti- 
mate with you, and in your society at your house, often and repeatedly, 
and in a manner calculated to disturb the quiet and peace of mind of 
your wife? A. I think I brought Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony 
there ; she hated them, but it was because she thought they were radi- 
cals, and so on. 

Q. Did you ever hear it stated or intimated that you had undue 
familiarities with those ladies at your house ? A. No, no. 

General Tracy — I don't mean criminal familiarities, but undue 
familiarities, such as visiting their room or appearing in their room 
before they were dressed ? A. No, I didn't ; I cannot imagine any 
reason why anybody should. 

Q. Was there any other lady besides the two that you have mentioned 
who annoyed Elizabeth? A. Mrs. Woodhull always annoyed her when 
she came; Elizabeth always took fire at every person who did not 
come within the limit of the orthodox ordinances ; she always loved all 
the women who were connected with the church ; my life was outside, 
and it generally happened that nearly all my public friends were 
radical in one way or another, and she could not bear it, and it annoyed 
her. 

Q. Don't you know of the visits and attentions of another lady that 
disturbed your wife very much ? A. No. 

[A series of questions then followed concerning another lady, which 
Mr. Tilton answered at first frankly, and afterwards with anger, claiming 
that the lady was an intimate and valued friend of his wife as well as 
himself.] 

General Tracy— Do you know that about the time of your quitting 

the Union, in 1869, your name and 's were associated together by 

public rumor ?^ A. By Henry Ward Beecher ; and he wrote an apology 
to Mr. Bowen, which I possess, recalling it ; it was his slander, and I 
can produce it ; the first thing Mr. Beecher did. within a week after his 
apology on the 4th of January, was to write to Mr. Bowen a retraction 
of what he had said in regard to . 

Q. When was it that he said it ? A. I never heard of it until he had 
unsaid it ; it was a voluntary thing ; in making his retraction he con- 
fessed the fact ; I had never heard that he had spoken unhandsomely 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 175 

until he apologized to me and wrote the retraction ; that retraction was 
put into my hands. 

Q. You mean to say that public rumor did not connect your name 

and 's at the time you were on the Union, or about that 

time? 

[Mr. Tiltox admitted that there was a paragraph in one of the New 
York papers that they were going to elope together. He was then on 
the Union. Other questions followed, concerning his visits to the lady, 
etc., which he explained as natural and proper.] 

Q. Did it come to the knowledge of your wife ? A. I carried it to the 
knowledge of my wife ; it was during the summer of 1870, when I edited 
the Union ; I only edited it eight months ; it never was a good paper 
before or since — begging pardon for improprieties. 

Q. Afterwards you made the acquaintance of Mrs. "Woodhull, did you 
not ? A. The next year, 1871. 

Q. Did you ever express your attachment for in the presence of 

your wife ? A. Ask my wife ; take her answer ; you may depend that 

I never said to or any other lad}?-, in the absence of my wife, what 

I w r ould not have said in her presence ; I have no secrets from Mrs. Til. 
ton : I never had any, and never should have had any but for this 
break-up ; I never had any secrets from Mrs. Tilton until within this 
last year or two, during which we have not harmonized as in former 
years. 

Q. Have you ever admitted to her that you had committed adultery ? 
A. I never admitted to her anything of the kind. 

Q. But you don't mean to say that you have not, do you ? A. Mr. 
Tracy, talk to me as one gentleman to another. 

General Tracy — You charge your wife with having committed adul- 
tery ; T mean to ask you whether you have or not ? A. I say. let my 
wife make the charge, if she wishes to. 

Q. I ask you the question. A. You may ask it till doomsday. 

Q. You decline to answer ? A. I do not ; I say I will take my wife's 
answer. 

Q. How could she know that you had, if you had not confessed it to 
her? I ask you whether you had not been guilty of the crime? A. I 
decline to hold a conversation with you on the subject. 

Q. Have you not admitted to others your commission of adultery? 
A. Mr. Tracy, have you committed adultery ? 

General Tracy — I have not charged my wife with that crime. 

Mr. Tiltox — If I am to be charged with the crime of adultery in this 
business I wish to know it. I wish my wife, in whose interest you 
speak, to make the charge if she chooses. Now let her choose. If you. 
gentlemen, suppose that you are to fight this battle in reference to my 
character I will make it ten times harder than you see. Yesterday we 



176 THE TRUE HISTOKY OF 

were on the edge of peace ; but if you mean to draw the sword the sword 
shall be drawn. 

Mr. Hill— Don't you think it is pretty well out? 

Mr. Tiltox — There is one thing that I was born for and that is war. 

Q. Did you make the acquaintance of Mrs. Woodhull in the absence 
of ? A. 1 don't remember whether she was absent or present. 

Q. Don't you remember whether it was while she was at home or not 
that you were associating with Mrs. Woodhull ? A. I knew Mrs. Wood- 
hull a whole year. 

Q. [After several questions interjected, involving reference to another 
woman] Do you know whether or not information was communicated 
to your wife that you were living with Mrs. Woodhull ? A. I never 
lived with her. 

Q. Do you remember whether your wife was told that you were living 
with her ? A. I never heard of it till now ; I saw something the day 
before yesterday in a salacious newspaper. 

Q. The Chicago Times? A. Yes. 

Q. Have you read it ? A. Yes. 

Q. Don't you know that information of precisely the character then 
published was communicated to your wife by the mother of Mrs. Wood- 
hull during your intimacy with Mrs. Woodhull ? A. I never heard of 
such a thing; I remember that Mrs. Morse was with Mrs. Claflin ; the 
old, crazy woman came at the foot of her stairs one night and made a 
hideous racket of some sort of trash ; Mrs. Morse quoted that, and got 
quite frightened about it. 

General Tracy— I hope all the mothers of your friends are not insane. 
Don't you know that Mrs. Claflin at the same time communicated that 
to your wife? A. I did not know that she saw my wife; I understood 
that that woman made a visit at Mrs. Morse's ; it may be, perhaps, that 
Mrs. Tilton was there at the time. 

Q. Don't you know that your wife's mind has been disturbed in regard 
to your own infidelity to her by your associations with public women? 
A. No, sir; if that pretence is made. Mr. Tracy, on your part, it is 
unmanly ; if it is made on her part it is false ; I have never associated 
with public women. 

General Tracy— I don't mean prostitutes; I mean reformers. A. 
Oh, yes; I said before that Elizabeth had been annoyed, over and over 
airain, by my associations with all persons out of the realm of religious 
orthodox ideas. 

Q. In that class of people whom among your lady acquaintances do. 
you include? A. I include Mrs. Stanton and Mjss Anthony, though I 
have not seen those people since Elizabeth ordered them of the house; 
beyond those persons I don't know ; Lucy Stone was one ; she lived in 
Boston ; she did not come very often ; Elizabeth was a reformer at one 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 17 7 

time, and had the getting up of woman's rights' meetings, and had the 
children take the tickets; she arranged the campaign, but now she 
can't endure them. 

SESSION OF JULY 23, 1874. 

At the session all the members were present and examined, 
with Mr. Tilton, who was also present, the letter from his 
wife which he had quoted in his statement. The other letters 
which he had quoted from he said were in the hands of Mr. 
Frank Moulton. After some conversation the committee 
adjourned. 

XIV. 

MR. BEECHER'S DENIAL. 

The publication of Mr. Tilton's statement in the 
Brooklyn Argus drew from Mr. Beecher the following 
emphatic denial of his assertions, and defence of Mrs. 
Tilton. It was published on the 22d of July: 

I do not propose, at this time, to make a detailed examina- 
tion of the remarkable statement of Mr. Theodore Tilton, made 
before the Committee of Investigation, and which appeared in 
the Brooklyn Argus of July 21, 1874. 

I recognize the many reasons which make it of transcendent 
importance to myself, the church, and the cause of public 
morality, that I shall give a full answer to the charges against 
me. But having requested the Committee of Investigation to 
search this matter to the bottom, it is to them that I must look 
for my vindication. 

But I cannot delay for an hour to defend the reputation of 
Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton, upon whose name, in connection with 
mine, her husband has attempted to pour shame. 

One less deserving of such disgrace I never knew. From 
childhood she has been under my eye, and since reaching 
womanhood she has had my sincere admiration and affection. 
I cherish for her a pure feeling, such as a gentleman might 
honorably offer to a Christian woman, and which he might re- 
12 



178 



THE TRUE HISTORY OF 




REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER PURCHASING TILTON S STATE- 
MENT FROM THE NEWSBOYS. 

ceive and reciprocate without moral scruple. 1 reject with 
indignation every imputation which reflects upon her honor or 
my own. 

My regard for Mrs. Tilton was perfectly well known to my 
family; when serious difficulties sprang up in her household, it 
was to my wife that she resorted for counsel ; and both of us, 
acting from sympathy, and, as it subsequently appeared, with- 
out full knowledge, gave unadvised counsel which tended to 
harm. 

I have no doubt that Mr. Tilton found that his wife's confi- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 179 

dence and reliance upon my judgment had greatly increased, 
while his influence had diminished, in consequence of a marked 
change in his religious and social views, which was taking place 
during those years. Her mind was greatly exercised lest her 
children should be harmed by views which she deemed vitally 
false and dangerous. 

I was suddenly and rudely aroused to the reality of impend- 
ing danger by the disclosure of domestic distress, of sickness, 
perhaps unto death, of the likelihood of separation, and the 
scattering of a family every member of which I had tenderly 
loved. The effect upon me of the discovery of the state of Mr. 
Tilton's feelings, and the condition of his family, surpassed in 
sorrow and excitement anything that I had ever experienced 
in my life. That my presence, influence and counsel had 
brought to a beloved family sorrow and alienation, gave, in my 
then state of mind, a poignancy to my suffering which I hope 
no other man may ever feel. 

Even to be suspected of having offered, under the privileges 
of a peculiarly sacred relation, an indecorum to a wife and 
mother, could not but deeply wound any one who is sensitive 
to the honor of womanhood. There were peculiar reasons for 
alarm in this case on other grounds, inasmuch as I was then 
subject to certain malignant rumors, and a flagrant outbreak in 
this family would bring upon them an added injury, derived 
from these shameless falsehoods. 

Believing at the time that my presence and counsels had 
tended, however unconsciously, to produce a social catastrophe, 
represented as imminent, I gave expression to my feelings in an 
interview with a mutual friend, not in cold and cautious, self- 
defending words, but eagerly, taking blame upon myself, and 
pouring out my heart to my friend in the strongest language, over- 
burdened with the exaggerations of impassioned sorrow. Had 
I been the evil man Mr. Tilton now represents, I should have 
been calmer and more prudent. It was my horror of the evil 
imputed that filled me with morbid intensity at the very 
shadow of it. 

jSTot only was my friend affected generously, but he assured 



180 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

me that such expressions, if conveyed to Mr. Tilton, would 
soothe wounded feeling, allay anger, and heal the whole trouble. 
He took down sentences and fragments of what I had been say- 
ing to use them as a mediator. A full statement of the circum- 
stances under which this memorandum was made I shall give 
to the Investigating Committee. 

That these apologies were more than ample to meet the facts 
of the case is evident, in that they were accepted, that our inter- 
course resumed its friendliness, that Mr. Tilton subsequently 
ratified it in writing, and that he has continued for four years, 
and until within two weeks, to live with his wife. 

Is it conceivable, if the original charge had been what is now 
alleged, that he would have condoned the offence, not only with 
the mother of his children, but with him whom he believed to 
have wronged them? The absurdity, as well as the falsity 
of this story is apparent, when it is considered that Mr. Tilton 
now alleges that he carried this guilty secret of his wife's infi- 
delity for six months, locked up in his own breast, and that 
then he divulged it to me, only that there might be a reconcilia- 
tion with me. Mr. Tilton has since, in every form of language, 
and to a multitude of witnesses, orally, in written statements 
and in printed documents, declared his faith in his wife's 
purity. 

After the reconciliation of Mr. Tilton with me, every con- 
sideration of propriety and honor demanded that the family 
trouble should be kept in that seelusion which domestic affairs 
have a right to claim as a sanctuary; and to that seclusion it 
was determined that it should be confined. 

Everv line and word of my private and confidential letters 
which have been published are in harmony with the statements 
which I now make. My published correspondence on this 
subject comprises but two elements: The expression of my 
grief, and that of my desire to shield the honor of a pure and 
innocent woman. 

I do not purpose to analyze and contest at this time the ex- 
traordinary paper of Mr. Tilton ; but there are two allegations 
which I cannot permit to pass without special notice. They 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 181 

refer to the only two incidents which Mr. Tilton pretends to 
have witnessed personally: the one, an alleged scene in my 
house while looking over engravings ; and the other a chamber 
scene in his own house. His statements concerning these are 
absolutely false. Nothing of the kind ever occurred, nor any 
semblance of any such things. They are now brought to my 
notice for the first time. 

To every statement which connects me dishonorably with 
Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton, or which in anywise would impugn 
the honor and purity of this beloved Christian woman, I give 
the most explicit, comprehensive and solemn denial. 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

Brooklyn, July 22, 1874. 

This manly and well-timed denial of Tilton's charges 
was well received by the public. 

XV. 

MRS. TILTON'S STATEMENT. 

Mrs. Tilton had left her husband's house on the 
11th of July, previous to his appearance before the 
committee, and the publication of his shameful charges 
against her, and had taken refuge in the family of Mr. 
Ovington, friends who stood by her bravely in her 
troubles. Goaded to desperation by the charges of her 
husband and their publication, this poor woman, on 
the 23d of July, addressed the following communica- 
tion to the public, through the medium of the Brook- 
lyn Eagle : 

To the Editor of the Brooklyn Eagle: 

To pick up anew the sorrows of the last ten years, the stings 
and pains I had daily schooled myself to bury and forgive, 
makes this imperative duty, as called forth by the malicious 
statement of my husband, the saddest act of my life. Beside, 



182 



THE TRUE HISTORY OF 




THE HALLWAY OF MB. THEODOBE TILTON'S EESIDENCE, NO. 174 LIVING- 
STON STBEET, BBOOKLYN. 

my thought of following the Master contradicts this act of my 
pen and a sense of the perversion of my life-faith almost com- 
pels me now to stand aside, till God, himself, delivers. 

Yet I see in tins wanton act an urgent call and pr.vilege 
from which I shrink not. To reply in detail to the twenty-two 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 183 

articles of arraignment I shall not attempt at present. Yet if 
called upon to testify to each and all of them, I shall not hesi- 
tate to do so. Suffice it for my purpose now that I reply to 
one or more of the most glowing charges. 

Touching the feigned sorrow of my husband's compulsory 
revelations, I solemnly avow that long before the Woodhull 
publication, I knew him, by insinuation and direct statement, 
to have repeated to my very near relative and friend the sub- 
stance of these accusations which shock the moral sense of the 
entire community this day. Many times, when hearing that 
certain persons had spoken ill of him, he has sent me to chide 
them for so doing ; and then and there I learned he had been 
before me with his calumnies against myself, so that I was 
speechless. 

The reiteration in his statement that he had "persistently 
striven to hide" these so-called facts, is utterly false, as his 
hatred to Mr. Beecher has existed these many years, and the 
determination to ruin Mr. Beecher has been the one aim of 
his life. 

Again, the perfidy with which the holiest love a wife ever 
offered has been recklessly discovered in this publication, 
reaches well nigh to sacrilege; and, added to this, the en- 
deavor, like the early scandal of Mrs. Wood hull, to make my 
own words condemn me, has no parallel. 

Most conspicuously, my letter quoting the reading of 
"Griffith Gaunt." Had Mr. Tilton read the pure character 
of Catharine, he would have seen that I lifted myself beside 
it — as near as any human may affect an ideal. But it was her 
character, and not the incidents of fiction surrounding it,, 
to which I referred. Hers was no sin of criminal act or 
thought. 

A like "confession " with hers, I had made to Mr. Tilton in 
telling of my love to my friend and pastor, one year before. 
And I now add that, notwithstanding all misrepresentations 
and anguish of soul, I owe to my acquaintance and friendship 
with Mr. Beecher, as to no other human instrumentality, that 
encouragement in my mental life, and that growth toward the 



184 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Divine nature which enable me to walk daily in a lively hope 
of the life beyond. 

The shameless charges in articles seven, eight, and nine are 
fearfully false in each and every particular. 

The letter referred to in Mr. Tilton's tenth paragraph was 
obtained from me by importunity, and by representations that 
it was necessary for him to use in his then pending difficulties 
with Mr. Bo wen. I was then sick, nigh unto death, having 
suffered a miscarriage only four days before. I signed what- 
ever he required, without knowing or understanding its import. 
The paper I have never seen, and do not know what statements 
it contained. 

In charge eighteen, a letter of mine, addressed to Mr. Fran- 
cis Moulton, quoted to prove that I never desired a separation 
or was advised by Mr. or Mrs. Beecher to leave my husband, 
I reply, the letter was of Mr. Tilton's own concocting, which 
he induced me to copy and sign as my own — an act which, in 
my weakness and mistaken thought to help him, I have done 
too often during these unhappy years. 

The implication that the harmony of the home was unbroken 
till Mr. Beecher entered it as a frequent guest and friend, is a 
lamentable satire upon the household where he himself, years 
before, laid the corner stone of Free Love, and desecrated its 
altars up to the time of my departure; so that the atmosphere 
was not only godless, but impure for my children. And in 
this effort and throe of agony, I would fain lift my daughters, 
and all womanhood from the insidious and diabolical teachings 
of these latter days. 

His frequent efforts to prove me insane, weak-minded, in- 
significant, of mean presence, all rank in the category of heart- 
lessness, selfishness, and falsehood, having its climax in his 
present endeavor to convince the world that I am or ever have 
been unable to distinguish between an innocent or a guilty 
love. 

In summing up the whole matter, I affirm myself before 
God to be innocent of the crimes laid upon me ; that never 
have I been guilty of adultery with Henry Ward Beecher in 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 185 

thought or deed ; nor has he ever offered to me an indecorous 
or improper proposal. 

To the further charge that I was led away from my home by 
Mr. Beecher's friends, and by the advice of a lawyer whom 
Mr. Beecher had sent to me, and who, in advance of my ap- 
pearing before the committee, arranged with me the questions 
and answers which are to constitute my testimony in Mr. 
Beecher's behalf, I answer, that this is again untrue, having 
never seen the lawyer until introduced to him a few moments 
before the arrival of the committee, by my step-father, Judge 
Morse ; and in further reply I submit the following statement 
of my action before the committee, and the separation from my 
husband. 

The publication of Mr. Til ton's letter in answer to Dr. 
Bacon, I had not known nor suspected, when on Wednesday 
evening he brought home the Golden Age, handing it to me to 
read. Looking down its columns I saw, well nigh with blind- 
ing eyes, that he had put into execution the almost daily threat 
of his life — "that he lived to crush out Mr. Beecher; that the 
God of battles was in him; he had always been Mr. Beecher's 
superior, and all that lay in his path, wife, children, or reputa- 
tion, if need be, should fall before this purpose." 

I did not read it. I saw enough without reading. My spirit 
rose within me as never before. 

" Theodore," I said, " tell me what means this quotation 
from Mr. Beecher ? Two years ago you come to me at mid- 
night saying: "Elizabeth, all letters and papers concerning my 
difficulties with Mr. Beecher and Mr. Bowen are burned, de- 
stroyed ; now don't you betray me, for I have nothing to defend 
myself with." 

" Did you believe that ? " said he. 

"I certainly did, implicitly," I said. 

" Well, let me tell you — they all live ; not one is destroyed." 

If this was said to intimidate me, it had quite the contrary 
effect. I had never been so fearless, nor seen so clearly before 
with whom I was dealing. 

Corning to me a little later, he said : " I want you to read it ; 



186 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

you will find it a vindication of yourself. You have not stood 
before the community for five years as you now do." 

Roused still further by the wickedness hid behind so false a 
mask, I replied: "Theodore, understand me, this is the last 
time you call me publicly to walk through this filth. My 
character needs no vindication at this late hour from you. There 
was a time, had you spoken out clearly, truthfully and manfully 
for me, I had been grateful, but now I shall speak and act for 
myself. Know, also, that if in the future I see a scrap of paper 
referring to any human being, however remote, which it seems 
to me you might use or pervert for your own ends, I will de- 
stroy it." 

" This means battle on your part, then," said he. 

" Just so far," I replied. 

I write this because these words of mine he has since used to 
my harm. 

The next morning I went to my brother, and told him that 
now 1 had decided to act in this matter ; that I had been treated 
by my husband as a nonentity from the beginning, a plaything, 
to be used or let alone at will ; that it had always seemed to me 
I was a party not a little concerned. I then showed him a card 
I had made for publication. 

He respected the motive, but still advised silence on my part. 
I yielded to him thus far, as to appearing in the public prints; 
but counselling with myself and no other, it occurred to me that 
among the brethren of my own communion I might be heard. 

Not knowing of any church committee, I asked the privilege 
of such an interview in the parlors of those who had always 
been our mutual friends. Mr. and Mrs. Ovington then learned, 
for the first time, that the committee would meet that night, 
and advised me to see those gentlemen, as perhaps the goodliest 
persons I could select. This I accordingly did. 

There, alone, I pleaded the cause of my husband and children, 
the result being that their hearts were moved in sympathy for 
my family — a feeling their pastor had shared for years, and for 
which he was now suffering. 

On going home, I found my husband reading in bed. I told 



THE BEOOKLYX SCANDAL. 187 

him where I had been, and that I did not conceal anything 
from him, as his habit was from me. He asked who the 
gentlemen were ; said no more ; rose, dressed himself, and bade 
me good-bye forever. 

The midnight following I was awakened by my husband 
standing by my bed. In a very tender, kind voice he said he 
wished to see me. I rose instantly, followed him into his room, 
and sitting on the bedside, he drew me into his lap, said " he 
was proud of me, loved me; that nothing ever gave him such 
real peace and satisfaction as to hear me well spoken of; that, 
meeting a member of the committee, he had learned that he 
had been mistaken as to my motive in seeing the committee, and 
had hastened to assure me that he had been thoroughly 
wretched since his rash treatment of me the night before," etc. 

Then and there we covenanted sacredly our hearts and lives 
— I most utterly : renewing my trust in the one human heart I 
loved. 

The next day, how happy we were ! Theodore wrote a state- 
ment to present to the committee when they should call upon 
him, to all of which I heartily acceded. This document, God 
knows, was the true history of this affair, completely vindicat- 
ing my honor and the honor of my pastor. In the afternoon 
he left me to show it to his friends. 

He returned home early in the evening, passing the happiest 
hours I had known for years ; renewedly assuring me that there 
was no rest for him away from me. So in grateful love to the 
dear Father, I slept. Oh, that the end had then come ! I 
would not then have received the cruel blow " which made a 
woman mad outright." 

The next morning he called upon our friends, Mr. and Mrs. 
Ovington, and there, with a shocking bravado, began a wicked 
tirade, adding with oath and violence the shameless slanders 
against Mr. Beecher, of which I now believe him to be the 
author. 

This fearful scene I learned next day. In the afternoon 
he showed me his invitation from the committee to meet them 
that evening. I did not then show my hurt — but carried it 



188 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

heavily within, but calmly without, all night, till early 
morning. 

Reflection upon this scene at Mr. Ovington's convinced me 
that, notwithstanding my husband's recent professions to me, 
his former spirit was unchanged ; that his declarations of repent- 
ance and affection were only for the purpose of gaining my as- 
sistance to accomplish his ends in his warfare upon Mr. Beecher. 
In the light of these conclusions, my duty appeared plain. 

I rose quietly, and having dressed, roused him only to say: 
" Theodore, I will never take another step by your side. The 
end has indeed come ! " 

He followed me to Mrs. Ovington's to breakfast, saying I 
was unduly excited and that he had been misrepresented per- 
haps — but leaving me determined as before. 

How to account for the change which twenty-four hours have 
been capable of working in his mind, then many years past, I 
leave for the eternities with their mysteries to reveal. That he 
is an unreliable and unsafe guide whose idea of truth-loving is 
self-loving, it is my misfortune in this late, sad hour to discover. 

Elizabeth R. Tilton. 

July 23, 1874. 

The comments of the press showed that Mrs. Tilton's 
statement was accepted by the great mass of the public 
as correct. The publication of her statement was fol- 
lowed, on the 31st of July, by her cross-examination 
before the committee, the official report of which was 
immediately published by them. 

XVI. 

MRS. TILTON'S CROSS-EXAMINATION. 

The official report of the cross-examination of Mrs. Elizabeth 
R. Tilton before the Investigating Committee, as communicated 
to the press by the chairman of that committee, is given in 
full, as follows : 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 189 

Brooklyn, July 31. 

By Mr. Hill — You stated, I think, the date of your marriage in your 
former examination ? A. I believe so — 1855. 

Q. Did you begin your married life housekeeping or boarding ? A. 
Boarding with my mother, on Livingston street. 

Q. About how long did you remain boarding with her ? A. My first 
housekeeping was in Oxford street ; I think that was in the spring of 
1860. 

Q. How long did you remain in Oxford street ? A. Nearly three 
years, I think. 

Q. And then where did you go ? A. We went to board with mother 
again about three years ; and then from there I went to my own house 
in Livingston street, where I remained until within a few weeks. 

Q. Please state to the committee what Mr. Tilton's conduct was 
toward you in the early part of your married life, so far as personal 
attention was concerned, in sickness or in health ? A. I wish these 
gentlemen to understand that, to a very large extent, T take the blame 
upon myself of the indifference my husband has shown to me in all my 
life ; at first I understood very well that I was not to have the attention 
that many wives have ; I realized that his talent and genius must not be 
narrowed down to myself; that I made him understand also ; to a very 
large extent I attribute to that the later sorrows of my life ; I gave him 
to understand, that what might be regarded as neglect under other cir- 
cumstances would not be regarded by me as neglect in him. owing to 
his business and to his desire to make a name for himself and to rise 
before the world. 

Q. To what extent was that attention to outside matters carried by 
him to the neglect of his family ? A. At the birth of the first three 
children. I had very severe and prolonged sicknesses ; but when he saw 
me, he never felt that I was sick, because on seeing him I always tried 
to seem well; I felt so desirous of his presence. It was charged upon 
me many a time by my mother and my brother : " When Theodore c. 
the doctor comes, you are never sick." They said of me : " She has 
never a <renius for being sick." 

Q. Will you state just what attention your husband bestowed upon 
you in case of sickness during your confinement, cr any other illness it 
you had them ? A. Well. I had no attention whatever. I may truth- 
fully say. from him. any more than a stranger would give; I do not 
think it was from neglect so much as from an inability on his part to 
understand that I was sick and suffering; though, in fact, I was very 
seriously ill. 

Q. Please [rive the committee some idea of the length and severity 
of your illnesses in these three instances, or in any one of them ? A. 
At the birth of my second little girl I was sick from the middle of April 



190 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

until September, confined to my bed; I sat up for the first time in the 
middle of September a little while. 

Q. Who was your physician ? A. Dr. Morrill ; Theodore, I can 
truthfully tell you, in that time never gave me any sympathy at all ; he 
called to see how I did in the morning and evening, or late at night; at 
this period he was absorbed in chess to such a degree that he would 
sometimes be up all night; I have known him to stand up at night, 
ready for bed, engaged upon a problem in chess, and to be found in 
that same condition in the morning, without having gone to bed at all. 

Q. Was his conduct in that respect the subject of remonstrance on 
the part of your mother and others? A. Frequently by my mother. 

Q. Ever in your presence? A. Yes, sir, and also by my nurse, who 
was a faithful woman ; she would often speak to him and of him in his 
presence as thoughtless and heartless ; I have known her many times 
to speak harshly of him. 

EARLY MARRIED LIFE. 

Q. How much was he engrossed with actual business at this time? 
A. Not very much; I always thought that if Theodore had more busi- 
ness he would have less time for sentiment and romance. 

Q. How much time did he spend in actual business as editor ? A. In 
the early years of his editorial life I think he was a pretty hard worker; 
he never had his study at home then, and never wrote much at home. 

Q. Do you recollect any message which came to you or to the family 
from your doctor, in regard to your condition, giving the reason why 
your illness was of such a lingering character? A. Yes. sir; I remem- 
ber that Dr. Putnam said, "There is care and trouble on that woman's 
mind, and I cannot help it with medicine." He said that there was 
something he could not reach by the ordinary method, and that it was 
trouble. 

Q. What was the trouble in point of fact? A. Well, any one of you 
gentlemen, I think, would have cared for my family as much as Theo- 
dore did. I was left entirely with my servants, and they were very poor 
servants. I could not have my mother with me. because it was impos- 
sible for her to live with us on account of the disagreement between Mr. 
Tilton and herself. 

Q. You intimated that you thought it would be better if your hus- 
band had been more fully occupied; will you explain further what you 
meant by that remark ? A. He spent a great deal of his time at home 
in moods of dissatisfaction with the surroundings, yearning and wanting 
other ministrations ; there was nothing in our home that satisfied him. 

Q. Why was that? A. It was on account of my domestic duties; I 
think it was because I could not minister to him in the way he wanted 
me to — that is, in reading ; his life was largely literary, and I could not 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 191 

meet him there ; I had three little children, all about the same age, at 
that time. 

Q. Were his friends persons who were congenial to you at that early 
time ? A. Yes, sir ; I was happy in the friends that he brought to my 
house, and I felt as if they were an addition to my life. 

Q. Tell me who your guests were at the time. 

A. I do not think when we boarded with mother that there were many 
except the church folks ; when we left mother's and went into Oxford 
street, literary people came to the house, and that has been so ever 
since ; they would sometimes call in his absence, and when he came 
home I would laughingly tell him so and so had been there during the 
day, and he would ask, "What did you have to say?" I would reply, 
'■ Well I am a first-rate listener if they are good talkers ; if not, I am a 
good chatterer myself." 

Q. Did you understand that he said that as an expression of doubt as 
to your ability to entertain people ? A. Yes, sir ; there is not a shadow 
of doubt of it ; I have lived under that always ; he was very critical 
about my language ; when under Theodore's influence I do not think I 
ever said anything freely or naturally. 

Q. Please state what you did or tried to do in receiving these friends 
of his ? A. I tried to receive them kindly and pleasantly, always ; and 
I think there is not one of them that will not bear witness to it ; they 
w r ere welcome ; I always had a great desire to make my home hospitable 
to every one that came into it; we had a little picture of a sunshine 
house; the first year Theodore brought it home, and I said, " Our home 
will always be like that." 

THE FIRST SEEDS OF DISCORD. 

Q. I want to ask you in regard to his attention to domestic wants — 
to the needs of the family ? A. He did not know anything about them 
at all ; I took charge of them myself altogether ; often he was critical 
about it, and I would say, "Well, alone I can do no better; but with 
you I think I can do much better ! " and he would say, "I do not call 
upon you to go to the office to do my work ; this is yours — the other 
is mine." 

Q. What was the character of his criticisms ? A. They were very 
unreasonable, indeed ; he w r ould speak to me harshly and severely about 
any little extravagance, as he considered it; he was very fastidious, and 
must have the best of everything ; but he didn't realize the cost. 

Q. Do you mean that he found fault with your domestic manage- 
ment ? A. Yes, sir ; with my management of ray servants, and with 
my management of the household matters generally. 

Q. You speak of his referring to it harshly and severely ; how did he 
treat you in matters of that description ? A. I fail generally when I 



192 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

attempt to be severe, and, therefore, I do not think I can imitate or 
describe him; he would frequently make some very impulsive remark ; 
I remember his taking me to task and scolding me severely before the 
butcher in regard to my dealings there; but directly after making a 
severe remark to me lie would always apologize, and say that he was 
sorry; but the apology was in private; it is a sorry story, indeed. 

Q. Were his demands extravagant ? A. Very much so ; he was very 
particular with regard to his diet, and the table linen and his own 
apparel, and the glass and china must be very nice ; but these things 
cost money, so that the expenses which we were subjected to were 
largely increased, while I would have liked very well to have had it 
different 

Q. Now, state to the committee what it was that first really disturbed 
your peace of mind in your family ? A. 1 think that first I was jealous 
of his attention to the ladies. 

Q. "When were you first sensible of that? A. I think not until the 
winter of 1806. 

Q. Do you recall any criticism of Mr. Tilton upon your conduct in 
any respect prior to 1869? A. Oh, yes; my manner to every one was 
a trouble to Theodore ; I think that was the beginning of my trouble ; I 
saw something that was interesting in every one ; persons that lie would 
find it a perfect bore to talk with, I would be interested in, and enter- 
tain ; that was a great annoyance to Mr. Tilton, and he said I gathered 
about me the most distressing sort of people, and he frequently had to 
go away ; many persons that were pleasant to me were repulsive to him ; 
but all who came — it mattered very little to me who they were — I took 
an interest in ; not that I wanted such and such persons, but the house 
was open, and I really feel that you should give me credit for that one 
gift of mine (if it is a gift) of seeing something in almost every one to be 
interested in— the poor and the rich and the miserable— even those 
women who have troubled me so much lately. 

COMMENTS ON MR. BEECH ER's FIRST VISITS. 

Q. When did he begin to talk with you, if at all, in regard to your 
association with and friendship for Mr. Beecher ? A. I think I had no 
personal visits from Mr. Beecher before 1866 ; that is the first that I 
remember seeing him very much. 

Q. What was the criticism in regard to Mr. Beecher and yourself 
which Mr. Tilton made? A. I would like to go back a little here, for I 
think it will show you my manner with Mr. Beecher; when I lived in 

Oxford street, that was the first of this taint with which Mr. filled 

my husband's mind as early as 1865; Theodore then used to begin to 
talk to me about Mr. Beecher's wrongdoings with ladies with which he 
(Mr. Tilton) had heard from Mr. , and night after night, and day 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 193 

after day, he talked about Mr. Beecher ; he seemed to be worried on that 
subject, so that when Mr. Beecher came to see me, Mr. Tilton imme- 
diately began to have suspicions ; but in order that I might be perfectly 
transparent to my husband with respect to my interviews with Mr. 
Beecher whenever I was alone with him, I used to make a memoran- 
dum, and charge my mind with all the details of the conversation that 
passed between us, that I might repeat them to Mr. Tilton; it was so in 
regard to every gentleman who came to see me, and with whom I sat 
alone ; I was very closely watched and questioned, but especially in 
regard to Mr. Beecher ; I attributed those criticisms from Theodore to 

Mr. 's criticisms ; I never had a visit from Mr. Beecher that I was 

not questioned ; Theodore would question me till I thought I had told 
him all that we talked about, and, perhaps, a day or two afterward, I 
would throw out a remark which Mr. Beecher had made, and Theodore 
would say, "You didn't tell me that yesterday ;" I would say: " I for- 
got it ; " " You lie," he would say, " you didn't mean to tell me ; " " Oh. 
yes, I did mean to tell you, but I forgot it;" for two or three years I 
tried faithfully to repeat to my husband everything that I said and did, 
till I found it made him more suspicious than ever ; he believed that I 
left out many things purposely, while I was conscious of never mean- 
ingly omitting anything ; I wanted Theodore to know everything that 
passed between us ; I often said that if he would only come home and 
be there he would know all. 

Q. You say that he would say " You lie ;" be kind enough to explain 
to the committee what his manner was in doing that? A. It was pas- 
sionate and angry ; he had no confidence in me ; in those days I suf- 
fered a great deal ; the last two or three years I have not felt so badly. 

Q. You say that these suspicions and criticisms continued for about 
three years ? A. They have lasted up to the present day, I think. 

THE FIRST CRIMINAL CHARGES. 

Q. When did his complaints against you change from the form of 
criticism to that of accusation, or something more than mere criticism? 
A. In the latter part of the winter, and in the early spring of 1869-70 
he began to talk to me, assuming that I had done wrong. 

Q. In what respect ? A. With Mr. Beecher. 

Q. Criminally ? A. Yes ; I have been with him days and nights 
talking this matter over ; but I would like to have you know that these 
conversations lasted for years, and that the change of his thought from 
the " old to the new," as he called it, was gradual ; I used to think that 
his suspicions of me were caused by his not being at rest in his own 
mind. 

Q. When he assumed that you had been guilty of criminal intimacy 
with Mr. Beecher, how did you treat the subject ? A. For a time I was 
13 



194 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

very angry, and expressed myself to him as strongly as I possibly could ; 
I became angry, and said I would not be talked to in that way. 

Q. State how you received it at different times — whether you received 
it silently or denied it ? A. I received it in various ways, according to 
the manner in which he introduced it; sometimes I would think it best 
to be quiet ; I have often taken the plausible mode of dealing with him, 
and tried to lift his mind from that subject to some other; I have acted 
according to his moods as far as I could. 

Q. State whether or not you invariably denied that you ever had any 
criminal intimacy with Mr. Beecher? A. I have indeed; I remember 
that he not only charged me with this in my presence, but often became 
so audacious as to write to me about it, and that seemed to me unpar- 
donable. 

Q. When did he begin that ? A. In the summer of 1870, when I was 
away. 

Q. What was the character of that which he wrote to you in this par- 
ticular? A. He sometimes would write quite at length of his own state 
of mind; his social theories — what we call free-love doctrines — were the 
one absorbing theme with him then; I remember replying to him ; I 
have not the letter, but so far as I can recollect there was a direct, not 
question exactly, but affirmation. 

Q. What was your reason for adopting these various methods in 
receiving these accusations ? A. Because I felt that he was in a morbid 
state of mind from troubles of his own ; I was not quite willing to treat 
the matter seriously in regard to myself until he began to publish it 
abroad. 

Q, What did you do in endeavoring to soothe and quiet Mr. Til ton, 
and relieve his mind from the impressions he had in regard to yourself 
and in regard to social life ? A. I read to him a great deal aloud ; I have 
read to him nearly half the night; he could not sleep; he never has 
been a good sleeper for years and years. 

Q. What did you do particularly in regard to his accusation against 
you? A. I never could do anything but deny it. 

Q. Did you always deny it? A. Oh. yes, sir; always. 

Q. Please state what lie said on the subject — how he introduced it? 
A. Well, as I look back upon it now, it seems to me that he would be 
very glad to bring me into such a state that I would acknowledge some 
wrong: all his influence, in his conversation, was exerted in that direc- 
tion ; he would talk of the Bible; he read it, and thought of it, and he 
was becoming persuaded, and was making up his mind in regard to the 
life he was about to lead ; and he would ask me again and again, " What 
do you think about this ? ' Whosoever looketh upon a woman/ etc. ;" 
really, my friends, he was morbid on that subject ; I do not think he 
ever talked about anything else ; I sought relief from it day and night, 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 195 

I assure you ; he would keep me awake till 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, 
discussing of this particular subject; it came from his giving un his 
religious faith ; altogether it was a breakdown. 

MR. TILTON JEALOUS OF OTHERS BESIDE MR. BEECHER. 

Q. In making those offensive allegations, what did he say? A. As 
often as any way, he said, " You will not deny that you have had crimi- 
nal intercourse," and he tried to frighten me by saying he had seen cer- 
tain things. 

Q. What things did he say he had seen? A. I remember that once 
or twice he pretended he saw me sitting in Mr. Beecher's lap at home, 
in the red chair in the parlor; in reply to this I said, "You didn't ;" I do 
not know what you, gentlemen, will think, but you certainly can see that 
such a continual talk, year in and year out, would have its influence 
upon me; I came to be really quite indifferent, except in regard to my 
anxiety about him ; it was a sort of morbid jealousy that he had ; I was 
worn out and sick with it. 

Q. Was it only in respect to Mr. Beecher that he made those accusations, 
or in respect to other people also ? A. In respect to Mr. Beecher only, 
at that time ; about 1870, I believe, he began to think that I had great 
admiration for several people beside Mr. Beecher. 

Q. Did he hesitate to mention names ? A. No, sir, he did not. 

Q. How many different persons did he mention ? A. Two or three 
gentlemen acquaintances. 

Q. Did he ever make to you any charge or accusation even with re- 
spect to Mr. Beecher, naming any definite time or place of any criminal 
act? A. Oh ! no, never; he never connected any time with it. 

Q. Did he ever pretend to you that you had been guilty of any im- 
propriety with Mr. Beecher at his (Beecher's) house? A. No; he 
wondered why I went there on two or three occasions ; I went on 
errands ; I attended Mr. Burgess a great deal at the time of his death 
(he was a poor man), and I went to Mr. Beecher two or three times to 
see him in regard to that man. 

Q. Did you ever meet Mr. Beecher at other places by appointment ? 
A. Never at all ; not once. 

Q. Did Mr. Tilton ever base any accusations against you upon any 
admission which you had made to him, either with respect to an event 
at Mr. Beecher's or your house, or any other place? A. Yes; he 
based an accusation against me in his public statement upon an inter- 
view which I had with Mr. Beecher in my second-story room, and I 
deny it in my public statement. 

Q. In any conversation with you at any time, did he accuse you of 
wrongdoing with Mr. Beecher based upon any admission by you? 
A. No, sir. 



196 THE TRITE HISTORY OF 

THE ALLEGED CONFESSION IN 1870 DENIED. 

Q. Is it true that in July, 1870, you confessed to your husband any 
act or acts of impropriety with Mr. Beecher ? A. No. 

Q. Did you admit to him any wrongs of criminal intimacy with Mr. 
Beecher at other places ? A. No, sir. 

Q. Now please state what conversation occurred in the summer of 
1870, along about the month of July, between you and your husband 
in relation to that subject. A. Well, I said in my statement not that I 
had made a confession similar to that which Catharine Gaunt had 
made at any one time, but that I had said things in many conversations 
out of which there might have been gathered up just such a story as, 
on reading Catharine Gaunt's up to a certain point, I felt that she 
had told. 

Q. You wrote a letter to your husband from Schoharie ; had you at 
that time read the life of Catharine Gaunt through ? A. No, I had not ; 
I had read the life of Catharine Gaunt to a certain point, and being 
touched very strongly with it in regard to myself, I sat down and wrote 
this letter to Theodore. 

Mr. Winslow — Had you at that time any reference to adultery, or 
thought of it? A. No, sir. 

Q. What did you refer to ? A. I will try to answer that question ; 
the one absorbing feeling of my whole life has been Theodore Tilton ; 
neither Mr. Beecher, I assure you, nor any human being, has ever 
taken away from that one fact, my love for him ; but I must say that I 
felt very great helpfulness in my own soul from having had the friend- 
ship of Mr. Beecher, and also of other people, as many women as men. 

Mr. Hill — You stated that in the summer of 1870 you made confes- 
sion in respect to Catharine Gaunt, and that you made it at no one 
time ? A. No ; I did not ; I think that Theodore gathered up from all 
our talks that summer that I really found in Mr. Beecher what I did 
not find in him ; he got that, I know ; I gave it to him ; but I often 
said, " Theodore, if you had given to me what you give to others, I 
dare say I should find in you what I find in Mr. Beecher." 

Q. In your Schoharie letter you spoke of your " sin ;" what did you 
mean by that ? A. Theodore's nature being a proud one, I felt, on 
reading that book, that I had done him wrong, that I had harmed him 
in taking any one else in any way, although, on looking it over, I do 
not think but that I should do it again, because it has been so much to ■■ 
my soul. 

Q. Taking any one else in what respect ? A. I do not think if I had 
known as much as I do now of Tilton that I should ever have encour- 
aged Mr. Beecher's acquaintance ; I think I did wrong in doing it, inas- 
much as it hurt Theodore ; I do not know as I can make myself under- 



THE BKOOKLYN SCANDAL. 197 

stood ; but do you know what I mean when I say that I was aroused in 
myself— that I had a self-assertion which I never knew before with 
Theodore ; there was always a damper between me and Theodore, but 
there never was between me and Mr. Beecher ; with Mr. Beecher I had 
a sort of consciousness of being more; he appreciated me as Theodore 
did not ; I felt myself another woman ; I felt that he respected me ; I 
think Theodore never saw in me what Mr. Beecher did. 

Mr. Sage — Do you mean to say that Theodore put down self-respect 
in you while Mr. Beecher lifted it up ? A. Yes ; I never felt a bit of 
embarrassment with Mr. Beecher, but to this day I never could sit 
down with Theodore without being self-conscious and feeling his sense 
of my inequality with him. 

JUST WHAT THE SIN WAS. 

Mr. Winslow — Will you state, in a few words, what was that sin 
which you spoke of in that letter ? A. I do not think that I felt that 
it was anything more than giving to another what was due to my hus- 
band — that which he did not bring out, however. 

Q. When you speak of what was due to him, what do you refer to ? 
A. Why, the all of my nature ; I do not think I feel any great sin about 
it now. 

By Mr. Hill— Do you mean that you thought you let your affections, 
or your regard, or your respect, go out for Mr. Beecher unduly, and so 
censured yourself? A. No, sir; I do not think I ever felt that, because 
I did not think I harmed Theodore in that ; I harmed him in his pride 
by allowing any one else to enter into my life at all; I think that 
was sin. 

Q. When you speak of your sin, you do not mean to be understood 
as going further than that ? A. No ; let me tell you a little more : 
Theodore, up to that time, in his accusations, would often talk to me 
by the hour to show me the effect that he said he knew I carried about 
my personal presence with gentlemen, and I would become nearly crazy 
in my conscience ; he would say that he knew there was no one who 
carried such an influence as I did ; I would say, " Theodore, I do not 
think that is a fact ; if I did, I would never speak to another man in 
all my life." 

Q. Did he define that influence ? A. He said I had a sensual in- 
fluence ; I used to become impregnated with this idea of his myself while 
under his influence, and I wondered if it was so, and would think it over 
and over ; he would often talk to me in that way by the hour, and try 
to persuade me that it was true ; and then, when I used to get out from 
under his influence, I was perfectly sure that no man ever felt that way 
toward me. 

Mr. Sage — Was there in the sin which you referred to anything that 



198 THE TKUE HISTORY OF 

was unjust, or that was giving to Mr. Beecher any affection that be- 
longed to your husband ? A. No, sir ; I think that the wifely feeling 
which I gave to my husband was pure as anything that I could give 
hiin ; there was nothing more than confidence and respect which 
I gave to Mr. Beecher, and I teach my daughters that if they 
give to their husbands what I have given to mine they will do enough ; 
I would like to have you, gentlemen, realize how very severe that was 
to me, because it has been day after day and week after week — the 
hearing that that was the effect of my presence upon persons ; it made 
me sick and caused me to distress myself ; it kept me in embarrass- 
ment ; it was a hard thing to live under. 

Mr. Cleveland — Did it make you feel that you were beneath him, 
and not his equal? A. Oh, certainly; I will tell you a little incident 
to explain this feeling in regard to my personal appearance (my presence 
was always mean, I know) ; I had often been invited to go with him to 
meet his friends, and, very much against my will, I have gone: I never 
could appear a3 a lady; of course I never could dress as other ladies 
did ; that was not my taste ; and when I have been there with them, 
going at his own desire, he has turned around to me and said, " I would 
give $500 if you were not by my side," meaning that I was so insignifi- 
cant that he was ashamed of me ; and I remember perfectly in two or 
three instances of going to hotels, where my being short of stature was 
a dreadful trial to him, and he said, "I wish you would not keep near 
me ; " I would not have gone if I had not been invited by him, and I 
did not go save to accompany him, dear friends ; and I would have cut 
off my right arm to have been five inches taller ; he seemed to be un- 
willing that I should be as the Lord made me ; I do not know what else 
it was ; one occasion I remember very well ; there was a large company 
of friends at our house ; they were all his friends — a gathering of 
woman's rights people — and he particularly requested me not to come 
near him that night ; it was very evident to me that he did not want 
comparisons made between us ; that seems very mean to state, but it 
hurt me very much to know it. 



Mr. Hill— In July, 1870, had you any conversation with Mr. Tilton 
in regard to his own habits and his associations ? A. Yes, sir, I had. 

Q. What was the character of this conversation ? A. He had always 
very freely opened his heart and his thoughts to me in all these conver- 
sations, for I think he never had a thought without telling me ; no mat- 
ter how much it hurt, he would tell it, and he made a great many dis- 
closures to me of his life that summer. 

Q. Did he make any confession to you of criminality with other 
ladies ? A. Yes, sir. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 199 

Q. And did you say tiiat was about July, 1870 ? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. You have noticed his statement in which he says you confessed 
adultery to him about that time ; and you say that the confession was 
the other way — from him to you ? A. It was ; I do not mean that his 
confession at that time referred to one ; his talk with me referred to 
several ■ it was the time when I was making up my mind what to do in 
regard to living with a person who had reached such a state, and in con- 
nection of those ideas he had grown into ; he said lie wished me to 
understand that when he was away from home on lecturing or anywhere 
visiting with friends, if he desired the gratification of himself he would 
do it, 

Q. State what you refer to in your published statement, where you 
speak of your going to other people to correct impressions with refer- 
ence to him, and finding that he had anticipated you ? A. The world 
was filled with slanders ^about him; he did not seem to know it; he 
thought everything came from me, and he said so ; lie declared that I 
was the originator of all this talk about him, and he insisted upon my 
correcting these impressions. 

Q. Do you remember that that was in the summer of 1870? A. Yes. 
I will give you one instance which occurred with Elizabeth so-and-so. 
Said he, " That woman has been talking against me, and I want you to 
go around and see her, and put an end to it." Well, I immediately did. 
The next day I put on my things and made a call on her, and said that 
I was surprised that she should add to the stories already in circulation 
— that I should have thought that she would have avoided doing it for 
my sake ; and she said, " Mrs. Tilton, do you know why I didn't ? Be- 
cause the night before your husband had told stories of yourself to such 
and such a person, that came to me directly, and I was not going to al- 
low an accusation of that character to stand against you." I found 
where I went not only the accusation, but the details which he has now 
published. 

Mr. Sage— He was charging you with the same crime that he was 
committing himself? A. Yes ; and it was a very singular thing for him 
to do ; I would go back from these calls utterly speechless ; I could say 
no more to these, people, and I said to him. "Theodore, what made you 
send me there ? " He would deny that he had ever said any such things 
as were attributed to him : there was no talking with him ; he was very 
unreasonable. 

DEXIALS OF SPECIFIC IMPEOPEIETIES. 

Mr. Hilt — I want to call your attention to the allegation made by 
your husband in his published statement with respect to a scene in Mr. 
Beecher's house, wherein he states that you were looking at engravings, 
and that there was an improper caress ; was there any truth in that ? 



200 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

A. No, sir ; I said in my statement that it was not true ; you must con- 
sider my public statement a part of my testimony. 

Mr. Winslow — When did you first learn of that ? A. In Theodore's 
statement. 

By Mr. Hill— Let me call your attention to another charge — that he 
(Mr. Tilton) discovered yourself and Mr. Beecher in the second-story 
bedroom of your house ? A. That I also deny. 

Q. Do you deny that it was as he stated it, or do you deny that he 
found you there ? A. He found us often in our common sitting-room, 
and he has invited Mr. Beecher there ; my writing-desk was up there, 
and we sat there more often than in the parlor, a great deal ; Mr. 
Greeley and almost everybody else went up there ; there were folding- 
doors between the bedroom and the sitting-room, and they were almost 
always open, and the door which Mr. Tilton said was locked was gener- 
ally locked, and we entered the room by the other door leading from the 
hall into the sitting-room. 

Q. Do you recollect an occasion when Mr. Beecher was in either of 
these rooms, and Mr. Tilton came to the hall entrance of the bedroom ? 
A. Yes, because that has been the one thing that he has always talked 
about to me. 

Q. Explain that occurrence? A. Well, I think Theodore had been 
with us for quite a little season that morning; he had gone out; Mr. 
Beecher was sitting in the large chair, and I had drawn up a small one ; 
Mr. Beeeher had in his hand a little manuscript that lie was* going to 
read ; I do not remember what it was ; the door from, the bedroom, to 
the hall was shut, and I had shut the door leading from the sitting-room 
to the hall, which was usually kept open ; I had no sooner done that 
(which I did to keep out the noise of the children that were playing in 
the hall) and sat down by the side of Mr. Beecher, when Theodore came 
to the other door; not five minutes had elapsed since he went out. 

Q. Was there any hesitation in opening the door? A. Not the 
slightest. 

Q. Were the folding doors closed? A. No; they were wide open. 
The door leading to the hall from the bedroom was locked ; but that was 
not uncommon. My closing the other door, which was seldom closed, 
perhaps did make Theodore suspicious. 

Q. Was Mr. Beecher flushed when Theodore came in? A. Not 
at all. 

Q. At what time in the day did that occur ? A. About 11 or 12 
o'clock. 

Q. He was there and left you, and returned in five minutes or less ? 
A. Yes. 

Q. Mr. Beecher was there, up-stairs ; Theodore was there, arid you 
were there ; all of you were sitting together, and Theodore went out 
and came back in five minutes ? A. Yes ; it was not more than that. 



THE BKOOKLYN SCANDAL. 201 

A SLAVE TO HER HUSBAND'S WILL. 

Q. Tell us with regard to the paper which Mr. Tilton says you wrote 
to him the latter part of December, 1870, wherein you stated that Mr. 
Beecher had been guilty of improper approaches to you ? A. Well, the 
paper which I wrote then was only a couple of lines, so far as I can 
remember. It was written, as I have told you already, at a time when 
I was pretty nearly out of my mind. If ever I was worried, it was by 
this constant talking. But what Theodore made me write I cannot tell 
to this day ; I am conscious of doing it on very many occasions; I am 
conscious of writing for Mr. Tilton many things under his dictation, or 
copying them off and giving them to him. 

Mr. Winslow — Things that were false ? A. Oh, yes ; that is why I 
expect before you to appear utterly miserable and weak and forlorn. 

Q. What did he say to you to make you write them ? A. He had 
very great embarrassments in every way — especially at that time, when 
these social scandals were upon him. 

Q. What benefit did he tell you would come if you would make these 
statements ? A. He said this statement was to help him in the matter 
with Mr. Bowen ; I did not understand how it was ; but, instead of going 
to Mr. Bowen with it, he went to Mr. Moulton with it, and that quite 
startled me. 

Mr. Hill — You say that the paper was about two lines long ? A. 
Yes, sir. 

Q. Can you tell us what was in it? A. No, sir. 

Q. If there was anything in it which reflected on Mr. Beecher, was it 
true or false ? A. False. 

Q. Did Mr. Beecher make any improper suggestions or request to 
you ? A. Why, no, sir ; it was utterly false ; I have done many things 
like signing that paper. 

Q. How happened it that you did these many things — copying off 
statements which Mr. Tilton had prepared for you, and which you say 
were false — what was the influence that operated on your mind ? A. I 
have always been unable to account for it; I do not know why I did it; 
there is a certain power that Theodore has over me, especially if I am 
sick ; and he hardly ever came to me when I was in any other condition 
to do anything of that sort, and I very frequently would say : " Well, it 
matters very little to me; I shan't be here very long anyway, and if you 
want me to do this, I will do it." 

Mr. Winslow — Had you arrived at a condition of mind on this occa- 
sion in which you could not exercise your will ? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Was it his will altogether that influenced you? A. Yes. 

Q. Did you feel that your will was not acting? A. I did; one or two 
letters that I sent West will bear witness to that — with regard to the 



202 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

same matter. I wrote a letter to Mrs. in one ten minutes, and in 

the next ten minutes I wrote another letter to her with a statement just 
contrary to that of the first ; the first was written under Mr. Tilton's 
influence ; after having written, I said to myself: " Why, I have stabbed 
Mr. Beecher," and I wrote in the second letter: "For God's sake don't 
listen to what I said in the first." 



TWO LINES WRITTEN IN DECEMBER. 

Q. Who suggested the words of that two-line letter in 1870 ? A. Mr. 
Tilton ; I had hardly any mind or consciousness in those days. 

Q. Did he write the words for you to copy, or did he suggest them ? 
A. He always wrote the letter and I copied it; I have never written a 
letter of my own in regard to this matter, except one very small letter, 
about which I desire to confess ; it was with regard to my mother; I do 
not know whether she has seen it or not ; in that letter I gave her a 
very cruel stab ; I wrote that, but the others were entirely of Mr. 
Tilton's concocting. 

Mr. Sage — When Theodore desired you to write those letters, which 
he dictated and wrote, and you copied, were you so much under the in- 
fluence of his will that you had no power of your own? A. I never 
exerted my will when he was about. 

Q. Had you any power of will, or did his will so dominate you that 
you were obliged to act under his ? A. I have often thought whether 
I had any power, or whether his was a mesmeric condition brought to 
bear upon me ; I certainly was indifferent to any act that I was doing, 
except to do as he willed me to do. 

Mr. Hill— Was that statement prepared during your sickness at the 
time of your miscarriage in 1870 ? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Then this peculiar influence of Mr. Tilton over you, to wtiich you 
refer, was aggravated by your physical condition ? A. Yes ; I never 
expected to see the light again. 

Mr. Winslow— Was that letter addressed to anybody ? A. It was a 
mere statement. 

Q. Did he say what he was going to do with it ? A. He said he was 
going to use it if he wanted it ; he gave me to understand that it re- 
ferred to his difficulties with Mr. Bowen. 

Q. Did you write that letter from your sick-bed ? A. Yes, sir; I had 
ink, pen and paper brought to me. 

Q. Were you lying down or sitting up ? A. Lying down. 

Q. Was it in the daytime or in the evening ? A. In the night. 

Q. How long did Mr. Tilton importune you for this letter? A. 
About five minutes ; it was a matter of indifference to me whether I 
gave it or not. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 203 

WHAT WAS SHOWN TO DK. STORKS. 

Mr. Hill — A letter was M-ritten, as we understand, by you to Dr. 
Storrs, or for the use of Dr. Storrs. Will you describe the circumstance 
under which it was written, and tell what was said to you at the time ? 
A. Theodore had been three or four months writing what he called " a 
true statement ; " it was written on foolscap, and it made a roll two or 
three or more inches in diameter ; he came to me one morning after 
breakfast in the parlor, in the presence of Mr. Carpenter, who had stayed 
at our house over night, and said that in about fifteen minutes he wanted 
to meet Dr. Storrs by appointment, and that he had a letter on which 
would hinge this whole story, and that he wanted to show it, and that 
he wanted me to copy and sign it; I never would allow him to read that 
story to me except in little fragments, because I did not believe in it ; 
nor would I allow the children to hear it ; he wanted Florence to hear 
it often and often ; and before he had this letter, he asked Annie Tilton 
and Florrie to go down into the parlor and listen to it ; they said no ; 
they did not care to read the story ; he said it was my influence that 
made them refuse ; well, this morning he had the letter written ; it fills 
one side of a note-sheet of my writing, as I copied it ; he said, " I Want 
you to copy that, because it is the hinge of the whole matter," meaning 
the whole or " true statement ; " I think the firsts line of it was, " Mr. 
Beecher desired me to be his wife, -with all that that implies;" I said, 
" I can't write that ; " said he, " I must have something a great deal 
better than I can write;" said I, "I cannot write it;" "Well, now, 
come, Elizabeth," said he, " that is not anything after all;" said I, "it 
is not true, and what will Mr. Beecher say?" There stood Frank Car- 
penter right by my side ; there was the writing-desk in the parlor, and 
he said that I had but fifteen minutes, and I sat down and wrote it. 

Mr. "Wixslow — What use was he going to make of it ? A. He was 
going to take it to Dr. Storrs. 

Q. Why did he want to show it to Dr. Storrs ? A. I don't think he 
gave any reason, except that he had made an appointment with him ; 
he said the whole story was all right, with the exception that he wanted 
something from me. 

Q. Is it true, as Mr. Tilton says, and as he said before this committee, 
that you wanted to make a stronger statement than he made ? A. It 
is absolutely false ; I thought it was dreadfully, wickedly strong as it 
was ; I knew there was trouble, and I thought it would in some way 
serve Theodore, and bring peace to his household ; he said that was the 
best way he could fix it ; it was some scheme to get him out of the 
Woodhull trouble. 

Q. Did he say that it would get him out of the "Woodhull trouble? 
A. He said that the writing of the whole statement would ; but whether 
he said so that morning or not I don't know. 



204 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Q. What part did Mr. Carpenter take in this? A. No part; he 
stood by the fire and looked on ; he did not advise rue one way or the 
other. 

Q. Mr. Carpenter says you left the room and readily assented to it; 
did you leave the room ? A. No, sir ; there are three parlors ; he stood 
in the back parlor by the tire, and I went to the desk in the middle 
room. 

Q. Was Theodore with you any of the time ? A. Part of the time. 

Q. You say you told Mr. Tilton you could not write that letter ; was 
that conversation before you went to the desk? A. It was in the middle 
room, before I took my seat at the desk. 

Q. Could Mr. Carpenter hear your conversation, or your objection to 
writing the letter when you made it ? A. No, it was a conversation in 
a low tone of voice. 

THE FALSITY OF THE LETTER ADMITTED. 

Q. Have you seen Dr. Storrs within a year? A. I went to see him at 
his study. 

Q. When was that? A. About a week after he called the Council ; I 
had been in considerable trouble about this letter of mine, and knowing 
that Dr. Storrs had seen it. I went one morning, without consultation 
with Theodore, alone, and asked Dr. Storrs to hear me ; he could not 
that morning, but he appointed the next morning, at 9 o'clock, for an 
interview ; that was a little while before the session of the Council ; I 
saw him all alone ; I told him I went to his church the Sunday before, 
and that I meant to have seen him there and asked an interview then, 
and he said that he never saw any one on Sunday after church ; then I 
told him I had been very little to church, lately, but that my daughter 
had attended his church and enjoyed his services, and I thanked him 
for his kindness to her (he had introduced her into his Sunday-school) ; 
I told him that I had called on purpose to say to him that there was a 
letter in the statement which Mr. Tilton showed him, as I understood, 
that I had written, and that I wanted him to know that I had not com- 
posed that letter, and was not the author of it in any way ; that it was 
false, and that it was added to the statement in order to have some word 
from me ; Dr. Storrs looked up at me and said, " I wish I had known 
that a week ago, because on that letter alone I believed Mr. Beecher to 
be a guilty man." 

Mr. Winslow — Did he inquire how you came to copy such a letter ? 
A. No. 

Mr. HiLir— Did you explain to him ? A. No ; he wanted to know if I 
knew of the great sin I had done ; I said I did ; he said it was a fearful 
thing, to which I said, " Yes, I realize it ; I have frequently done such 
things as that." 



THE BKOOKLYN SCANDAL. 205 

Q. Did you explain to him the influence of Theodore upon you ? A. 
No, sir, not at length ; he was in a hurry. 

Q. You went to see him for the simple purpose of correcting that 
impression? A. Yes, sir; he was then going to see Dr. Budington; 
and he said that if I wanted to talk further he would like me to see his 
wife. 

Q. Have you had any conversation with Dr. Storrs since ? A. No, sir. 

Q. Did you know Dr. Budington ? A. No, sir ; never met him. 

Q. Did you tell Theodore that you were going to see Dr. Storrs ? A. 
No, sir ; but he very soon found it out. 

Mr. Hill — I want to call your attention to a letter which was pub- 
lished by your husband in his statement, dated Brooklyn, February 7, 
1871, apparently from Mr. Beecher to you ; did you ever see it ? A. No, 
sir ; I never saw it until it was printed there. 

HER DISLIKE FOR MR. MOULTON. 

Q. Did you ever hear about it ? A. I was never willing to have any- 
thing to do with Mr. Moulton, although Mr. Tilton was ; I have never 
been a cordial visitor at his house ; I never had anything to do with him; 
Mr. Tilton early told me that whatever communication I had on these 
matters in regard to Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Woodhull must come 
through Mr. Moulton ; but I said, " I shall have nothing to do with any 
third party ; I shall be trusted as I have been hitherto, and if Mr. 
Beecher or any one else has anything to say to me it shall not come 
through Mr. Moulton;" well, there came to me two or three times 
papers and letters which purported to come from Mr. Beecher, but I 
did not look at them, because they came through Mr. Moulton ; I did 
not care anything about them ; this one, one day when I was sitting in 
the parlor, Mr. Moulton brought to me and said it was a very important 
letter ; I refused to receive any letter from him in that way, and he said, 
" let me read it to you," and he did read something, but it went in one 
ear and out of the other, so much so that I do not remember what was 
in it ; I know there must have been a letter, but I did not see the hand- 
writing or anything about it ; I did not take it in my hands ; after read- 
ing it he carried it away. 

Q. Can you recall anything in the letter that he read which makes 
you think that this is the one ? A. I remember something about his 
urging me to have Mr. Moulton as a confidant ; the only thing that 
impressed itself upon my mind was that Mr. Beecher desired me to 
accept Frank Moulton in some way, as in him we had a common ground; 
I have a recollection of some such statement, against which I rebelled, in 
the letter which Mr. Moulton read to me. 

Q. Do you recollect a letter beginning, " My dear Husband — I desire 
to leave with you, before going to bed, a statement that Mr. Henry 



206 



THE TRUE HISTORY OF 



Ward Beecher called upon me this evening and asked me if I would 
defend him against any accusation in a council of ministers," and end- 
ing, " Affectionately, Elizabeth" ? A. Yes, sir ; but that is not my letter. 
Q. How was it written ? A. In the same way as those which I have 
already explained ; I have no other explanation for any of them ; that 
was written in bed ; Mr. Tilton wrote it first, and I sat up in my sick-bed 
and copied it. 

Mr. Cleveland — Is that true of all the letters that have that signi- 
ficance ? A. Yes, sir, so far as my authorship of them is concerned. 

Mr. Winslow — Was he excited? A. He was always very much 
excited about his own public difficulties. 

Q. Had he been out that 
evening? A. Yes; he had 
been to Frank Moulton's. 

Mr. Hill — What time did 
he get home ? A. My 
nurse had gone to bed, and 
he found me in bed ; I was 
very sick, and my nerves 
were greatly disturbed. 

Q. When he first came 
in, what did he say ? A. I 
do not remember. 

Mr. Winslow — What led 
to this act ? A. His bring- 
ing me pen and ink and 
paper ; he had the letter 
already written. 

Mr. Hill— What did he 
say about it? A. Really, 
I positively tell you I can- 
not remember ; I felt often 
at that time utterly despair- 
ing and miserable, and it mattered to me but little what I did. 
Q. Was it when you were sick from a miscarriage ? A. Yes. 




MISS SUSAN B. ANTHONY. 



THE RETRACTION GIVEN TO MR. BEECHER. 

Q. Do you recollect Mr. Beecher calling that evening? A. Yes. 

Q. When ? A. But a few hours before I wrote that letter. 

Q. Can you remember that interview with Mr. Beecher ? A. It was 
a very similar one to the other ; I was half unconscious and was very 
ill-prepared to see either of them ; my room was all darkened, and the 
nurse had gone to hers ; she opened the door and said that Mr. Beecher 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. • 207 

wanted to see me ; I certainly do not know what to tell you about that 
either. 

Q. Do you remember writing some paper for Mr. Beecher ? A. Yes. 

Q. Can you recall the contents of that paper ? A. No, I cannot ; I 
think it was to do something for him, because Theodore had done some- 
thing against him. 

Q. Is it true that he said anything to you about a council of minis- 
ters ? A. I do not remember everything about it ; I have tried very 
hard, dear friends, to get into my mind those scenes, but they are utterly 
gone out of my brain. 

Q. Did you not tell Miss Anthony that you had committed adultery 
or other wrong with Mr. Beecher, or anything to that effect ? A. No, 
sir. 

Q. Did you ever tell any human being that you had been guilty of 
wrong-doing with Mr. Beecher ? A. I never voluntarily did so ; once 

my husband took me in Mrs. 's carriage to the house of a lady to 

whom he had been telling stories about me and Mr. Beecher ; I went 
against my will ; and when we got there, he said, " I have brought 
Elizabeth to speak for herself, whether I have slandered her," and I did 
not deny him; it was the same thing as when I copied and signed letters 
which Theodore had prepared, and I am reminded of this ; I do not 
know whether it was treachery, but many times he has said, " You have 
gone to Dr. Storrs, and now he knows that you are guilty ;" he found 
out that I had been to Dr. Storrs, and he was very angry. 

Q. What did he say ? A. I do not know ; but he was very angry, as 
you may well suppose he would be ; he was violent in manner. 

Q. Was he ever profane ? A. Very often ; and I always left his pres- 
ence when he began to swear. 

Mr. Cleveland — Do you think it possible, in your low state of health, 
when talking to people about your troubles, that you might have left the 
impression upon their minds that there was something criminally wrong, 
without intending to do so ? A. I do not think I ever did ; I understand 
that Miss Anthony and another lady have both reported that I made 
confidants of them, and it came in this way; I have, full of anguish of 
soul, many times talked freely to them ; and on one occasion Susan 
Anthony stayed all night, and I talked with her. 

WHAT SHE TOLD MISS ANTHONY. 
Mr. Hill — How did that interview with Miss Anthony come about ? 
A. In this way : She came with Mrs. Stanton one afternoon to 

our house, and they proposed going to Mrs. 's to dinner. Mrs. 

Stanton and my husband went first, early in the afternoon, and we 
understood that Theodore was coming back to bring Susan and myself 
there. I was not going, however. The evening came, and Miss 



208 THE TKUE HISTORY OF 

Anthony was very much annoyed to think that Theodore didn't come, 
and she filled my mind all that evening with stories about Theodore's 
infidelities. He came home about 11 o'clock ; Mrs. Stanton remained at 

;\£ ra< ' s all night. When Theodore came in, Susan began in a very 

angry way to chide him for not coming after her, and charged him with 
what she had been telling me about ladies ; and he grew very angry at 
Susan— so much so that she ran up-stairs and locked herself up in the 
front room ; I followed, and he said t'o me, "You have done this thing; 
you have been talking and putting it into her mind ; " " No," I said, " I 
never was the one to talk against Theodore in that manner;" he was so 
angry that I feared he would be really crazy ; for the first time he threat- 
ened to strike me ; he went into his own room, and was so much excited 
that I was alarmed ; I thought I would sleep with him aud apply water to 
his head and feet, but Susan would not let me; she said it was not safe and 
that I should not stay with him ; so I went into her room and went to bed 
with her ; but during the night I went frequently to see how he was ; he 
did not sleep, he was restless ; that night 1 told Susan of my alarm for 
Theodore ; I told her I never saw his brother in a state when it seemed to 
me that he was more crazy than Theodore then was, and I went on further 
to tell her how he was, she having seen this exhibition of his, of his being 
angry, and of his striking ; I told her, also, in the conversation, " that he 
had charged me with infidelity with one and another, and with Mr. Beecher 
particularly, and that, when lie sat at his table, many times, he had said 
that he did not know whom his children belonged to ; " on a similar occa- 
sion I spoke to ; I was aroused to it by Mrs. Woodhull's being there, 

and by being very much outraged by a visit from Mrs. Clan 1 in and the 
two sisters of Mrs. Woodhull, whom I called the police to take away ; 
sat with me, and 1 poured out my soul to her. 

Mr. Wixslow — You called the police to take the Claflins away? 
A. Yes ; and they seeing it went oft*. 

By Mr. Hill — You say that you opened out your soul to ? 

A. Nothing more than to tell her what unjust accusations had been put 
upon me by my husband. 

Q. Did you in each instance with her and with Miss Anthony take 
the trouble to say that these accusations were false ? A. No ; it never 
occurred to me to do it ; I took them to be reasonable persons, and I 
never thought of their even wondering if it was so. 

Q. I want to call your attention to an important statement of your 
husband that you have written out a confession or an ndmission of your 
guilt with Mr. Beecher, and that you intended to send it through your 
step-father to the church ; is that so ? A. Oh, dear no ; I never heard 
of that before. 

Q. How frequent were Mr. Beecher's calls upon you ? A. There was 
no regularity in them at all ; I think never oftener than once in three or 
four weeks. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 209 

Q. Was there ever a time, so far as you know, when Mr. Beecher 
called upon you so often as twelve times within five or six weeks, as Mr. 
Tilton alleges in his statement ? A. I do not think he called as often 
as that ; I do not think he can have called more than once in two or 
three weeks. 

Q. Explain the circumstances under which you left to go West ? 
A. I went to get rested from Theodore's constant tal kings ; I was worn 

out by them; I went to Mrs. 's, in Ohio, in the fall of 1870, and 

found — — there ; she had been there for some time. . . . 

mr. tilto:n t 's boasts. 

Q. Before you went West, had you a conversation with jour husband 
in regard to , and his treatment of her ? A. Yes. 

Q. What was the substance of it? A. This came out in his talks 
with me about persons with whom he had been ; he spoke in this way ; 
.... he made me listen to that ; I always had to hear it, and to hear 
all sorts of things. 

Q. When you went West, and saw , did you have any conversa- 
tion with her about your interview with Mr. Tilton in respect to her ? 
A. Yes, and she told me it was so ; she said she often thought of telling 
me before she left home, but that she feared it would add to my 
burdens ; that she tried to think Mr. Tilton was a father to her, and did 
not mean anything wrong, and all that, and that she concluded not to 
tell me. 

Q. You and returned together to New York ? A. Yes ; Mrs. 

and I talked the matter over as to whether should stay with 

her or myself, and I thought she could be a great help to me in my state 
of health, so she returned with me ; I expected to find my house as I 
left it, but it was altogether different ; my husband had sent off my 
servants ; mother said she would remain and oversee matters while I was 
away ; she did for a few days, and then left ; he took into the house a 
middle-aged maiden lady, and she had entire possession. 

Q. What was her name? A. . 

Q. Did you find that Theodore had been talking over these troubles 
with her so that she was completely possessed of his ideas about them ? 
A. Yes, sir ; and I have every reason to believe that she ministered to 
hira in every way. 

Mr. Hill — Do you mean in a criminal way? A. Yes, I do ; I was 
utterly turned out of house and home ; when I got there, there seemed 
to be no place for me ; they had not expected my return so soon ; they 
thought I was to remain West all winter; I found her at the head of 
the table and taking my place entirely, and Mr. Tilton backed her up in 
all this : I never could have a word to say; she followed me wherever I 
went ; if I went into the china closet or anywhere else, she was behind 
14 



210 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

me looking over my shoulder to see what I was about; this went on 
until finally I was persuaded that she had been told to take possession 
of the house and occupy it. 

Q. Do you recollect an interview at the breakfast table, referred to 

by , at which you were grieved by what this person did in your 

presence ? A. Yes ; he sat at the table, she at the head, and I oppo- 
site, and Theodore and on one side; Miss , who was up-stairs, 

had not come down ; I was full of feeling, and could eat nothing ; pres- 
ently I left the table, and (the person at the head) said : " Well, I 

think Elizabeth is getting crazy;" and Mr. Tilton said, " , don't 

you think Mrs. Tilton is getting demented ? " " No," said , indig- 
nantly, " but it is a wonder to me that she has not been in the lunatic- 
asylum," or something like that: Miss criticised that remark of 

's ; Theodore followed me into the parlor, and said to me that I 

must discharge that girl immediately; I was at the piano at the time ; I 
frequently went there and touched a few notes when I was in trouble, 
as a sort of relief; Mr. Tilton spoke to me defiantly and violently, and 

heard it, and came in and said to him, " You are not going to 

scold Mrs. Tilton on my account ?" He was very angry with her, and 
asked her if I had said that he had guiltily approached her, etc., rather 
boastingly; and she replied to him, "Yes, sir, you did, and you know 
you did ; " at that lie took hold of her and threw her against the wall ; 
after that scene Mr. Carpenter came to ask me about it, he having 
heard of it; Theodore wa3 present, and he said to me, " I wish you to 
make that straight with Mr. Carpenter," and I immediately denied it. 

Q. left the house within a day or two, did she ? A. Yes, she 

went to my mother's. 

Q. How long was she absent from the house? A. She never came 
to stay there afterward ; sometimes she would come and stop with me 
over night. 

PAINFUL EXPLANATIONS. 

Q. She states that she had an interview with her, in which you said 
that she might go away to school, that her expenses would be paid ; do 
you recollect that ? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Please stale what interview you had with your husband or any 

one else about. 's going away ? A. He came home from a visit 

with Mr. at Mr. Monlton's house. He learned there that Mr. 

had this story, and was using it against him, and he said, " Something 
must be done to stop that girl's talk." Mother had been brought into 
the matter in some way, and he wanted me to write something and 

give it to to copy and sign. I said, "If you will write it I will 

take it to her." She was then at Mrs. 's, in street, as seam- 
stress. He would not allow her to stay in our house. He said if she 
would sign such a paper as he wanted, he would promise her $500 or 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 211 

$600 a year. I said : " You had better not do that ; but if any good 
can come out of all this trouble, let it be done to educate her ; " he said, 

" Yes, I will send her to Mr. , in , who has an institution for 

young ladies ; " I thought at last there was an opportunity for her get- 
ting an education ; I am sure she did not know what she was doing 
any more than I did ; she was very simple-minded ; I handed the paper 
to her, and said, "Just copy that and sign your name to it," and she 
did right away ; I do not think she thought anything about it ; her 
mind wa3 bent on going to school and all that [the paper thus signed 
was a retraction of the stories told about Mr. Tilton's behavior] ; after- 
ward, when she was away at school, Theodore threatened me a great 
many times, and said : " You don't think I sent her away because of 
my own case ; it was because of the story I told her about you ; " I said 
I thought very differently of the matter, and that I would not allow it 
to stand so ; he represented that he sent her away because of some 
secret that he had given her about me, whereas it was directly the con- 
trary. 

Mr. Cleveland — "Where did the money come from? A. I think 
Mr. Moulton furnished it. 

Mr. Hill — What was the character of your private discussions with 
Mr. Tilton ? A. He would take me into a room and lock the door ; this 
he has done days and days ; I think the reason he locked the door was 
to keep the children from me ; he has kept me locked up all day long 
many a time ; this has occurred innumerable times ; it was this which 
wearied my life. 

Mr. Sage— While he had you locked up, did his mind obtain complete 
dominion over yours, so that you lost your own will ? A. I think it 
did ; I suffered a good deal. 

Mr. Hill— How numerous were those interviews ? A. They some- 
times took place two or three times a week. 

Q. Was his manner mild and conciliatory or violent ? A. It varied 
according to his moods ; but he always bore down upon me heavily in 
the way of accusation. 

Mr. Cleveland— Did you ever feel in those interviews that his mind 
might be unsettled ? A. I really did. 

Mr. Hill— Do you recollect having an interview with Mr. Beecher 
with regard to your domestic difficulties, toward the end of 1870, about 
the time of Mr. Tilton's valedictory in the Independent, one or two days 
before your sickness ? A. Yes, sir. 

HER TALK WITH MRS. BEECHER. 

Q. Please state what occurred at that interview? A. I told him I 
wanted to talk with him about my difficulties at home ; he almost in- 
stantly, when he saw the character of my message, said, " Well, I will 



212 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

send Mrs. Beecher to you ; she will be a mother to you ; tell her all that 
you would like to say;" he did not seem to have any advice to give 
particularly ; he preferred that Mrs. Beecher should be the adviser, so 
he brought Mrs. Beecher to me, at mother's house, and introduced me 
to her, and after a few moments he left me ; she asked me to tell her 
the story of my troubles, and inquired why it was that I thought of a 
separation. 

Q. Did you go over all your troubles to her ? A. Yes, in a degree ; I 
told her a good deal of the same sort of thing that I have told you here 
to-night. 

Q. Do you recollect what Mrs. Beecher's advice to you was ? A. I 
think I do, pretty well ; she looked at the matter very differently from 
what I did ; I was vacillating in my mind what I should do ; she said, 
did she know that her husband had been faulty in that manner, she 
would not live with him a day ; she said she had always known Theo- 
dore's tenderness; I felt a little uncomfortable in talking to Mrs. 
Beecher, because I knew she was very much prejudiced against Theo- 
dore ; I was not very greatly helped in my mind by that interview with 
Mrs. Beecher ; I only saw her twice ; I thought I had better make my 
mind up for myself; and I finally concluded to live with him, thinking 
it was a morbid state that he was in, and that he would soon get out of 
it ; my talks with Mrs. Beecher were long and painful, and I cannot 
recall all that was said. 

Q. Do you recollect whether you went back home in consequence of 
the fact that Mr. Tilton had sent for the children ? A. He had sent for 
the children, and he had taken the baby, and then I went back after 
that. 



Q. State what you did, in your anxiety and trouble, with reference to 

this Miss , and the position which you found her occupying in your 

house ? A. I think she hurt me more than any one in the world ; she 
was more severe, and treated me with greater contempt than anybody 
else ever did, and to such an extent that I could not speak of it to my 
husband, as he never took any side ; nor could I tell mother about it ; I 
did not feel like revealing to her all this trouble, and embarras- 
ment, and humiliation ; I did not feel that there was a place for my 
head in that house, and frequently I went out wandering in the 
streets ; night after night I walked, with my waterproof cloak on, and 
would go back and creep into the basement and lie down anywhere, feel- 
ing utterly wretched ; once I went away from home, thinking that I 
would not come back, but I found that I had left my purse at home, and 
had to return; Mr. Tilton owns a lot in Greenwood, and there I have 
two babies ; I went there with my waterproof cloak on, and with the 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 213 

hood over my head, and lay down on the two graves, and felt peace ; I 
had been there but a little while before the keeper of the grounds or- 
dered me off; I paid no attention to him; I did not regard his order 
until he came again in a few moments and said, " I order you off these 
grounds ; do you hear me ? " I rose on my feet and said : " If there is 
one spot on earth that is mine, it is these two graves ; " and he actually 
bowed down before me in apology ; though he was a common workman, 
it was very hearty, and it was very grateful to me : he said, " I did not 
know that these were yours; " and he left me; I stayed there on the 
little graves the rest of the day. 

Q. Were experiences of that character common during your suffering 
in consequence of Mr. Tilton's introducing other persons into your 
family, and in consequence of his treatment of you ? A. Yes ; but no 
one ever knew it, and I cannot endure to tell it now ; at the same time, 
I trust you will all think the matter over well, and use as little of it as 
you can. 

Q. After Mr. Tilton had left the Independent what provision did he 
make for your family ? A. I suffered very much indeed from want ; I 
have sometimes had no fire ; many and many a time I have had no food, 
and Theodore has been utterly indifferent to it ; the winter was very 
severe ; I sent away the servants, and no one but myself in that house ; 
inasmuch as it was a marked house, there came scarcely one human 
being of all the church people, and I had not a friend to call on me ; my 
brother only called once ; I lived by myself ; Theodore came there to 
sleep, but he did not look into the matters to see whether I had this, 
that, or the other thing ; he always took his meals with Mr. Moulton. 

Q. Do you think that it was on your account or on his account ? A. 
I think it was on account of the family troubles ; I think that the pub- 
licity of the Woodhull matters was the cause of my social neglect. 

Mr. Storrs — Were the Woodhull women there ? A. Not the Wood- 
hull women; Mrs. Woodhull never came to see me after I returned from 
the country ; but two or three times she had taken her meals there ; and 
on one occasion Mr. Tilton wanted to have her stay over Sunday, and I 
refused to have any Sunday visitors of that class. 

[Several questions followed touching upon Mr. Tilton's bringing other 
ladies into his house. Mrs. Tilton said, with regard to some of the 
ladies she specially named, that she had never thought there was any- 
thing criminally wrong in their relations with Mr. Tilton.] 

Mr. Cleveland — In looking back on all these years with Theodore, do 
you feel conscious that you tried to do everything that you could for him 
as a good wife, and as a good mother to your children ? A. I do ; I have 
not one pang of conscience on that score ; I really yet do not see how 
I could have done differently. 

Q. So that now, in this culmination and breaking up of your family, 



214 THE TKUE HISTORY OF 

you do not feel that you are responsible ? A. I do not ; I feel that I 
have borne and suffered for his sake, and that he alone is responsible 
for this disruption of my family. 



XVII. 
THE CASE IN COURT. 

The proceedings of the committee were necessarily 
slow, and as it was desirable that all the charges 
against Mr. Beecher should be submitted before his 
reply was made, he preserved silence while the investi- 
gation was going on, except in the instances that have 
been mentioned. The patience of the public was very 
sorely tried, but there was no help for it. 

A young man named William J. Gaynor, in the hope 
of compelling the publication of all the evidence, en- 
tered a complaint before Justice Riley, of Brooklyn, 
against Theodore Tilton for libelling the Rev. Henry 
Ward Beecher, and procured his arrest. After a pre- 
liminary examination, Mr. Tilton was released on his 
promise to appear. The case was adjourned several 
times, and was finally brought to a close by the with- 
drawal of his complaint by Gaynor. The New York 
Sun, of July 29, published the following account of 
the affair: 

A blue-eyed young man, well dressed and sober, walked to 
the desk in Justice Riley's court room, at Myrtle avenue and 
Adelphi street, Brooklyn, yesterday afternoon, and said that he 
wished to swear out a complaint against Theodore Tilton for 
libelling the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 

The Justice looked at him steadily for a moment, and won- 
dered whether the young man was crazy. He looked sane, and 
said that he was in earnest. He said that his name was Wil- 
liam J. Gaynor ; that he lived at 38 First Place, Brooklyn ; 
that he was formerly a Boston lawyer, but recently had been 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 



215 



reporting for a Brooklyn newspaper. He said he knew enough 
about law to know that any member of the community could 
make a complaint against an offender, and he asserted his right 
to be heard. 

The Justice read the affidavits, made out a warrant, and put 
it in the hands of officer Thomas Shaughnessy. 

The officer went to 174 Livingston street, and asked to see Mr. 
Tilton. The servant pointed out the way to Mr. Tilton's library. 

The ex-editor of the Golden Age lay at full length on the 
lounge, his chestnut locks making a pillow for his head. He 
was in his shirt sleeves 
and stocking feet, look- 
ing serene. The oil 
painting of Elizabeth R. 
Tilton, representing the 
"black-eyed, curly-haired 
Lizzie Richards as she 
looked when young Til- 
ton married her, hung 
directly over his head. 
The posture is unique. 
The figure is bent for- 
ward as if listening, and 
the dark curls hang 
straight on each side of 
the face. 

Mr. Tilton greeted the 
officer and took the 
folded paper. He saw 

its legal form, and whirled himself about on the lounge, 
bringing himself to a sitting position, and leaning forward 
patiently read the papers. 




WILLIAM J. GAYNOR. 



LAUGHING AT THE OFFICER. 



When Mr. Tilton had finished reading, he looked at the 
Then he said : " It's all right, wait a 



officer and laughed 
minute.' , 



216 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

A Sun reporter was ushered in at this moment, and Mr. 
Tilton, looking up from the desk where he had just seated him- 
self to write, said : 

" Good afternoon. Have you come to see me to jail ? Here's 
the officer. There's the warrant." 

He wrote a note to Mr. James H. Bates, the business partner 
of Petroleum V. Nasby (D. K. Locke) in an advertising 
agency, and with the officer went into Schermerhorn street to 
find "his friend. He had an engagement with him to ride down 
to Coney Island to dinner, and was anxious to let Mr. Bates 
know that he could not keep it, and the reason why. 

He met Mr. Bates and explained, and asked him to call at 
Justice Riley's court in an hour, and perhaps he might be able 
to go after all. He said lie was arrested, and might be sent to 
jail for all that he knew. He walked to Fort Greene with the 
officer and reporter, humming a tune to himself, and talking 
about a flood he saw in Pittsburg in war time. 

Reaching the court room, he asked for Judge Riley. 

The Judge took his seat, but there was no complainant in 
sight. There were one or two editors of the Argus, a few court 
officers, and two or three strangers in the room, besides the 
Judge and the clerk. Judge Riley said : " Mr. Tilton ?" 

Mr. Tilton (arising) — Did you speak to me? 

Judge Riley — Yes. You are arrested on the complaint of 
William J. Gaynor, as set forth in these affidavits. 

The Judge read the affidavits, and Mr. Tilton asked to see 
them. 

" Plow do you plead ? " asked the Judge. 

MR. TILTON EXPLAINS. 

"I am not an expert in the language of the law," said Mr. 
Tilton, deliberately, " and lam unable to say whether I am 
guilty or not guilty. The card bearing my signature was 
printed with my knowledge and consent, but my sworn state- 
ment was not printed with my consent. I stand by the facts as 
they are set forth. Will you explain to me the legal pro- 
cedure?" 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 217 

The Judge explained that the charge was that he published 
the writings to scandalize and bring into contempt and disgrace 
the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 

" Oh, no, not that ; " said Mr. Tilton. " I made the charges 
in self-defence, and abide by the facts." 

"If the facts are true," said the Judge, "there is no libel." 

" The facts are true," said Mr. Tilton, with emphasis, " and 
I plead not guilty." 

The plea was entered. 

" When will you be ready for trial ? " asked the Judge. 

" Any time," said Mr. Tilton. 

" To-morrow morning at 10 o'clock ? " inquired the Judge. 

" Yes," answered Mr. Tilton. 

"You will give bonds in the sum of $2500 for your appear- 
ance," said the Judge. 

Mr. Tilton ran his hand through his bushy hair, and said, 
" I will give you my word of honor." 

" All right," answered the Judge. 

Mr. Bates' carriage had arrived, and Mr. Tilton bowed to 
the court officers, and was driven down the Coney Island road 
to dinner. 

The officers closed their books and started out, and the blue- 
eyed young man, well-dressed, sober, and with red beard, who 
had made the complaint, came out of the private office. 

Officer Shaughnessy wrote in his report : " Theodore Tilton, 
38, U. S., 174 Livingston street, libel." 

The blue-eyed young man was William J. Gay nor. He 
asked how Theodore took it. 

An officer replied, " Good-naturedly." 

" Now," said Gay nor, " this thing will come to a climax. 
Henry Ward Beecher, Mrs. Woodhull, Frank Moulton, Mrs. 
Tilton, and everybody will have to testify here. The commit- 
tee could never make them testify. I don't know whether 
Beecher is innocent or guilty, but I want to see, and the only 
way to see is in a judicial tribunal." Gaynor said he did not 
know Tilton and neither liked nor disliked him, but simply as 
a citizen he wished to bring the scandal to a focus, and help to 
crush it either in proving its truth or falsity. 



218 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Mr. Til ton says that he does not know his complainant, and 
says that he has never to his knowledge seen him. When he 
returned from Coney Island, late last night, where, he said, the 
sea never looked to him more splendid, he said : " If the com- 
plaint comes from Mr. Beecher or his friends, I am glad of it, 
but if it is not an honest prosecution it is very trifling." 

Mr. Tilton sent word to ex-Judge Morris to call on him this 
morning. He will appear before Judge Riley at ten o'clock. 

Gay nor was a lawyer in Pemberton square, Boston, for two 
years. For six months he has been reporting the courts for the 
Brooklyn Argus. 

The scene in the Justice's Court the next morning is 
thus reported by the New York Dally Graphic: 

Long before ten o'clock this morning Justice Riley's court room on 
Myrtle avenue and Adelphi street, Brooklyn, was crowded. The news 
that Theodore Tilton was to appear to answer the charge of libel 
against Henry Ward Beecher drew a crowd that threatened even to fill 
the sidewalks half way down to Willoughby avenue. Many women were 
present. Some were well dressed, and some had evidently thrown on 
bonnets and shawls hastily to run in from neighboring houses. " Now 
the matter will be settled," was an expression frequently heard. " Will 
Mrs. Woodhull be here ? " " Do you suppose he had himself arrested ? " 
" What do you suppose Beecher is going to make out of this ?" and a 
hundred other questions exhibited the conjectures of the throng, or 
their ignorance of the matter in hand. 

THE SCENE IN COURT. 
Judge Thomas M. Riley was promptly on the bench. He called a 
number of minor cases with much judicial energy and precision. At 
ten minutes past ten o'clock Theodore Tilton entered. He was preceded 
by ex-Judge Samuel D. Morris, his counsel. The crowd pressed against 
them. Judge Morris shouldered his way through, two court officers 
acting as advance guard. The crowd vainly attempted to fall back to 
get a fair view of Mr. Tilton. His head and flowing hair rose nearly a 
foot above the mean level of heads in the court room. He looked self, 
possessed, but wore his almost habitual expression of heroic long suffer- 
ing. A pause was made just inside of the bar. Judge Riley never 
looked up. He was busy trying a case. The machinery of the law did 
not stop for an instant. Mr. Tilton paused to look for a seat. It was 
just behind the chair of William J. Gaynor, who obtained the warrant 
for his arrest. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 219 

THE COMPLAINANT. 

Mr. Gaynor is a solemn-looking young- man with a literary cast in his 
countenance and reddish whiskers and moustache. At this juncture he 
looked so very unconcerned and so very much as if he were unaware of 
Mr. Tilton's presence that his solemn face came to wear an air of posi- 
tive melancholy. There was a moment of painful interest to the news- 
paper representatives and legal gentlemen inside the bar, and then 
Judge Morris exclaimed in a loud whisper : 

" This way, Mr. Tilton." 

" This way " led through a narrow passage into a room directly in 
rear of the court. In this room Mr. Tilton sat with Judge Morris and 
a half dozen other gentlemen, who had pressed their way in. until after 
eleven o'clock. He discoursed only in brief replies, and was vigorously 
reticent in relation to the details of the scandal. 

AN INTERVIEW WITH TILTON. 

" Did you see Gaynor ? " he was asked. 

" No ; I don't know him. Is he here ? " 

" Yes. He is in the court room. He says that he called on you 
during the existence of the present trouble as a representative of a 
certain newspaper." 

" I suppose," said Mr. Tilton, " that I have been called upon by forty 
different newspaper representatives recently, and though I think I should 
know each one of them if I should meet him alone, yet I probably 
should not be able to pick each of them out in a throng of people." 

" What motive could he have had, do you think, for making this com- 
plaint ? " 

" I do not know. I do not understand what right he had to do so. I 
can readily understand how Mr. Beecher, if he believed as he professes 
to, could swear to such a complaint, but how this man could have 
become possessed of facts sufficient to warrant him to do so is a mystery 
to me." 



Judge Morris sat near Mr. Tilton, but spoke to him only once or 
twice during the whole time of waiting. He is a rather stern gentleman, 
with short-cropped black whiskers and moustache. When asked ques- 
tions he says he really doesn't know, in a chilling sort of way. 

At a quarter past eleven Justice Riley came into the waiting-room. 
He had finished his morning's calendar. He addressed Judge Morris. 

A DISCONTINUANCE RECOMMENDED. 

Justice Riley — I came in to suggest a discontinuance of this case. I 
do not knoj?r what grounds there are for pressing it, and I have no doubt 



220 



THE TRUE HISTOKY OF 




THEODORE TILTON INTERVIEWED BY REPORTERS. 

that the complainant would consent to a discontinuance. Or, if this 
won't do, suppose you agree to an adjournment of the case until Monday. 
You can see the complainant and arrange the matter with him. 

Judge Morris — We are placed in such a peculiar situation that it 
won't do for us to see (emphasizing the word) this complainant. 

Justice Riley — Well, then I suggest that I talk with him. I think 
the case ought to be broached to the District Attorney. 

Here Judge Morris went tc the sofa on which Mr. Tilton had been 
reclining at full length (his favorite posture) and held a short conversa- 
tion with him. Justice Riley retired for a minute, and when he re- 
turned spoke in a low tone to Judge Morris. Then it was announced 
that the case would go on. 

A PRIVATE HEARING DENIED. 
As soon as the last case on the calendar had been passed up the Judge 
said, " Will Mr. Gaynor step inside ? " 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 221 

Mr. Gaynor accordingly arose and walked into the Judge's parlor at 
the back of the bench. Immediately it was intimated that the case was 
to be heard privately, and there was a great rush of reporters and artists, 
and the little room was soon most inconveniently crowded and unbear- 
ably hot. It is impossible to say who suggested that the hearing should 
be private. But Mr. Gaynor very soon backed out of the room, and 
informed Judge Riley, who was still sitting on the bench, that he would 
decline to conduct the hearing in private. The Judge accordingly 
opened the door and said : " The complainant declines to agree to a 
private hearing of this case." 

Then there was a rush of the reporters and artists again back to the 
court room. 

IN OPEN COUiiT AGAIN. 



Tilton, said : " Have you any suggestion to make ? " 

Mr. Morris — Yes, sir, I have a suggestion to offer. I have spoken to 
the complainant here, asking him whether this complaint was made at 
the suggestion of the party alleged to have been libelled, and I am in- 
formed that he has made it on his own responsibility and entirely with- 
out the knowledge of the person alleged to have been libelled, or any 
friend of his. Now, your Honor is aware that complaints of this kind 
are usually and properly made by the person alleged to have been 
libelled, or by some friend of that person, with his knowledge and con- 
sent. It is not in harmony with the judicial procedure of this State that 
a complaint of this kind should be made by a stranger, without the 
knowledge of the party libelled or of the friends of the party ; and, while 
Mr. Tilton is ready and willing to meet any charge preferred against 
him at any time and in any place, when properly presented. I submit 
that the forms of law and judicial procedure should not be called into 
requisition for the mere purpose of gratifying idle curiosity or giving 
cheap notoriety to any person. I therefore submit, in view of the status 
of this case — Mr. Tilton. be it understood, comes forward quite ready 
and willing to meet the charge — I submit whether, in view of the status 
of this case, the ends of justice would not be best served by its terminate 
ing here. If your Honor is of a different opinion I move the adjourn- 
ment of the case till Monday, and in the meantime I shall see the legal 
representative of the people of this county and take his view as to what 
should be done. 

Judge Riley — I think myself it would be a good thing for the com- 
plainant to allow the case to discontinue here. I cannot tell what good 
end would be served by a hearing of the case before me. I haven't any 
idea what caused him to come and make the complaint here. 



222 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

THE COMPLAINANT QUOTING LAW. 

Mr. Gaynor — What the counsel has stated with regard to the pro- 
priety or right which I had to make the complaint against Mr. Tilton I 
think is entirely without foundation, and when he says that your Honor 
knows that my action is not in accordance with the judicial procedure 
of the State, and that I am acting unwarrantably, I reply that your 
Honor knows, and counsel knows, and every member of the community 
knows, that whenever a violation of the laws of the State is committed 
it is the option of any member of that community to make a complaint, 
and cause such violation of its laws to be punished. If this man has 
been guilty of libel, he has been guilty of a violation of the laws of the 
State, and he deserves punishment, and I have a right to come forward 
and bring him to justice. If he had committed murder it is my duty, 
it is the duty of every member of the community, to bring him to jus- 
tice. If a man steals a horse it is my duty, it is the duty of every 
member of the community who is aware of the fact, to bring him to 
justice. If a man libels one of his fellow-citizens he violates the law 
the same as the murderer or the horse-thief, and it is my duty to en- 
deavor to bring him to justice. It may be a little unusual ; it may be 
more usual to bri-ig such cases before a Grand Jury, where probably 
nothing at all would be done with the case. But I have a right to have 
him arrested on this charge, and it is his privilege if he choses to waive 
an examination and wait for a Grand Jury. 

APPLAUDING THE PLAINTIFF. 

The speaker was greeted with a round of applause as he closed. 

Mr. Morris — I would ask again whether the complainant represents 
the party alleged to have been libelled ; or whether, as I am informed, 
he has caused this warrant to be issued on his own responsibility. 

Mr. Gaynor — I have come forward of my own free will, as a member 
of the community who is interested in the observance of the laws of the 
State, and I am here to see that the laws of the State are applied. I 
am in collusion with nobody. I have consulted nobody. I wish to 
ascertain whether the laws of the State have been violated. 

Mr. Morris — I deny that any of the laws of the State have been 
violated, but that is not the suggestion which I have made to your 
Honor. I am very glad to see that the complainant is so anxious to 
see the laws of the State upheld. But it must be perfectly manifest to 
your Honor, and will be manifest to the public, that that is not the 
motive of this complainant. His motive is simply notoriety. 

Judge Riley — Do not impugn motives. That is improper. I think 
the case must be heard. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 223 

ADJOURNED. 

Mr. Morris— Then I ask that the case stand over till Monday, until 
I can consult with the legal representative of the people of this county. 

Mr. Gaynor — I wish to have Mr. Beecher and all the other parties 
subpoenaed. I am willing to let the case rest till then. 

Judge Riley — The case is adjourned until ten o'clock on Monday 
morning next. 

The case was several times adjourned, and was finally dis- 
missed, Mr. Gaynor having withdrawn his charge. 



XVIII. 

MR. BEECHER DEMANDS HIS LETTERS. 

As has been stated, the patience of the public had been sorely 
tried by the delay in the investigation. This was unavoidable, 
however. It was necessary for the charges to be made in full, 
and for all the evidence sustaining them to be taken before Mr. 
Beecher could properly answer them. This was a slow process. 
In the meantime, however, Mr. Beecher was not idle. His 
course is thus comprehensively stated by the Albany Evening 
Journal : 

While many of the papers have been clamorously censuring Mr. 
Beecher for apparently paying no heed to the charge of Mr. Tilton, it 
seems the great preacher anticipated their impetuous demand and has 
been quietly doing what honor and truth seemed to require. At the 
very time when the accusation was published he wrote a letter to repre- 
sentative members of his church asking them to investigate the matter. 
He did this, as appears, upon his own prompting. Even the regular 
examining committee knew nothing of it until some days afterward. 
And now, we are told, the examiners have about concluded their labors. 

Doubtless those who have been ready to believe Mr. Beecher guilty 
and who have loudly called upon him to clear his skirts will now com- 
plain of this quiet investigation. They will insist that it ought to have 
taken place in the full eye of the public and in the full blaze of their 
garish capitals. They will not readily forgive the pastor of Plymouth 
that he has prevented this "scandal," with charge and countercharge, 
from being spread as a dainty dish before the country every day. They 
will intimate that the conclusions of a secret investigation, though they 
may exonerate him from every imputation, will always be open to sus- 



224 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

picion. Upon that point, however, we presume, the result will be pre- 
sented in such a way and with such proofs as to disarm all reasonable 
objection. 

In the light of this disclosure, the course of Mr. Beecher, throughout 
this extraordinary chapter of history, seems dignified, honorable, and 
self-respecting. The imputation against him first found publicity in 
the shameless, lying, outrageous story of the vile Woodhull. Mr. 
Beecher was then told in not a few of the public prints that he ought 
to make an answer. But his only answer was the pertinent question 
whether anybody passing under a window and flooded with a bucket of 
filth would stop to enter into a controversy with the nasty scullion. 
If the reputation and character of a lifetime weigh nothing against the 
slanders of the most leprous and infamous of creatures, then they are 
practically worthless, and, so far as the world is concerned, it is idle to 
spend a life in acquiring a good name. Forty thousand charges from 
sensational and bedizened harlots — upon whose face, as Shakespeare 
says, shame is ashamed to sit — should have counted nothing against 
Mr. Beecher, and he only obeyed the dictates of a manly self-respect 
when he refused to bandy words with the disreputable being in whose 
libidinous utterances the enamored Mr. Tilton heard the inspiration 
of Demosthenes ! 

In that determination time has fully vindicated him. The letter of 
Mr. Tilton himself furnishes the proof that the story of the Woodhull 
was false from beginning to end. What Mr. Beecher disdained to 
answer, beyond a single incidental denial, the very man whom he was 
accused of wronging has himself effectually disproved. Mr. Beecher 
acts with a calm faith and composure which inspire confidence. 

In Mr. Tilton's statement certain letters of Mr. Beecher had 
been produced. These were from the first regarded by the 
public as the only serious part of Mr. Tilton's document. Mr. 
Tilton and his friends held that they proved conclusively that 
Mr. Beecher was guilty of the acts charged against him; that, 
in short, they could not be reconciled with any other theory. 
Many of the warmest supporters of Mr. Beecher were staggered 
by them, and on all sides was heard the remark, "If Mr. 
Beecher will only explain these letters, he can aiford to laugh 
at all the rest that has been said against him." The malice 
of his enemies and the anxiety of his friends both overlooked 
the fact that these letters were perfectly consistent with the 
theory of Mr. Beecher's innocence ; that they were in fact the 
productions of a mind conscious of its innocence though sorely 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 



225 




REPORTERS ENDEAVORING TO OBTAIN ADMISSION TO A MEETING 
OF THE INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE AT MR. STORRS'S HOUSE. 



tried by trouble. On the 27th of July, the New York World 
published the following able analysis of these letters, which 
attracted much attention at the time, and is so important a 
feature of the case that we reproduce it : 

Mr. Beecher's rejoinder does not charge Tilton with forging the ex- 
traordinary letters which are skilfully strung along the thread of his 
indictment. If forged, it is incredible that Mr. Beecher should not have 
made haste to pronounce them forged. The engraving scene, the 
chamber scene, he made haste to pronounce an invention, " absolutely 
false." '• Nothing of the kind,'' he says, ,; ever occurred, nor any sem- 
15 



226 THE TRUE HISTORY OF " 

blance of any such thing." The general charge of the indictment, too, 
he made haste to deny with all the force of language. "To every state- 
ment which connects me dishonorably with Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton, or 
which in anywise would impugn the honor and parity of this beloved 
Christian woman, I give the most explicit, comprehensive, and solemn 
denial." But Mr. Beecher does not deny writing the letters which Til- 
ton publishes as his. On the contrary, he pronounces none of them 
forged, and he says of them in general : " Every line and word of my 
private and confidential letters which have been published is in harmony 
with the statements which I now make. My published correspondence 
on this subject comprises but two elements — the expression of my 
grief, and that of my desire to shield the honor of a pure and innocent 
woman." 

That "grief" and that " desire " would not misbecome Mr. Beecher 
if Tilton's charge were true. The expression of that "grief" and that 
"desire" should weigh but lightly in favor of a chivalrous man. with a 
cold and critical judge searching for the truth. Every line and word 
of Mr. Beecher's private and confidential letters must be in harmony 
with, must make not the slightest discord with, the theory that his rela- 
tions with Mrs. Tilton were not criminal, else Tilton's indictment, which 
contains (apart from the letters) not the slightest proof, nothing but 
unsupported allegations, is fatal to Mr. Beecher. 

Plenty of time was taken by Tilton to prepare his indictment. It is 
to be presumed that lie accumulated therein all the proofs within his 
reach to support his allegation of a criminal connection between his 
wife and his former friend. His mind is an untrained one, of the senti- 
mental sort, teeming with cheap rhetoric, with no logic and no knowl- 
edge of the rules of evidence, but he probably did his best to set forth 
what evidence he had to support his charge. The letters of Mr. Beecher 
himself, and of Mrs. Tilton herself, constitute, we repeat, all the evi- 
dence in support of those passionate and bitter affirmations, which Mr. 
Beecher has met by " the most explicit, comprehensive, and solemn 
denial," and which Mrs. Tiiton has met by affirming "before God," 
"never have I been guilty of adultery with Henry Ward Beecher in 
thought or deed, nor has he ever offered to me an indecorous or im- 
proper proposal." 

It is a sharp and searching test of the question, crim. con. or no crim. 
con., to lay Mr. Beecher's private and confidential letters now disclosed 
by Tilton, letters written for no eyes but those of Tilton or Mrs. Tilton 
or Moulton, alongside of the theory of his guilt, and the theory of his 
innocence. It is a test to which Mr. Beecher appeals and to which at 
any rate he must submit, be the result what it may. 

Mr. Beecher's own letters are six in number and may be described as: 

1. His letter of contrition, to Moulton, January 1, 1871. • 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 227 

2. His letter of gratitude, to Moulton, February 7, 1871. 

3. His letter of advice, to Mrs. Tilton, February 7, 1871. 

4. His letter of non-resistance, to Moulton, June 1, 1873. 

5. His letter of torment, to Moulton (no date given). 

6. His letter of " sacrifice me," to Moulton (no date given). 

1. Mr. Beecher's letter of contrition is as follows : 

[In trust with F. D. Moulton.] 

My Dear Friend Moulton : — I ask through you Theodore Tilton's 
forgiveness, and I humble myself before him as I do before my God. 
He would have been a better man in my circumstances than 1 have 
been. I can ask nothing, except that he will remember all the other 
breasts that would ache. I will not plead for myself. 1 even wish that 
I were dead. But others must live to suffer. I will die before any one 
but myself shall be inculpated. All my thoughts are running out 
towards my friends, and toward the poor child lying there, and praying 
with her folded hands. She is guiltless, sinned against, bearing *the 
transgression of another. Her forgiveness I have. I humbly pray to 
God to put it into the heart of her husband to forgive me. I have 
trusted this to Moulton, in confidence. H. W. Beecher. 

Crim. con. or no crim. con. ? Let the test be applied. With which 
does this letter fit ? " Every line and word " must be " in harmony " 
with one or the other theory. The charge made by Tilton is crim. con. 
No lesser fault than crim. con. could engage the attention of the whole 
public as now. If Mr. Beecher has ever known Mrs. Tilton's love for 
him to surpass her love for her husband, yet did not withdraw from her 
society, did not refuse to encourage it by reciprocal tenderness, that 
indeed is a grave fault, in a clergyman a most grave fault, enough when 
discovered to make him wish himself dead, to make him feel that the 
end of his career at last was come in an open and public shame which 
must silence his tongue and pen as an ethical teacher, as a preacher of 
the Christian religion. But neither that fault nor any less fault would 
certainly move public opinion to so stern and relentless a judgment as 
such a man might yet anticipate, and think to take refuge from in suicide. 
It would take a fairer account than he of his otherwise well-spent life, 
at such a moment. Men of the world would condemn the fault, but not 
him utterly. The pious would say : a sin assuredly, but go ; sin no more. 
But no such fault, repented of with tears and anguish, pardoned and 
pardonable, is that which Tilton now alleges against his wife's pastor. 
He charges criminal conversation. Crim. con. or no crim. con.? is the 
searching test which must be applied to his own letters. 

" I will die before any one but myself shall be inculpated." These 
words and the remainder of the letter of contrition were omitted by 
Tilton when he quoted its first sentences at the close of his letter to 
Dr. Bacon, written to prove himself more magnanimous than Mr. 
Beecher. Without inquiring why Tilton should have stopped short of 



228 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

them in his quotation, let them be reconciled with the crim. con. theory, 
if possible. Note that Tilton alleges (though Mrs. Tilton denies) the 
fact of her confession of crim. con. six months earlier, July 3, 1870; 
alleges his own silence during those six months ; alleges that he met Mr. 
Beecher for what he calls «' a harmonious interview " and to comply 
with Mrs. Tilton's " wish and prayer for reconciliation and peace be- 
tween her pastor and her husband ;" alleges that Mr. Beecher then for the 
first time became aware of what Tilton describes as the six months old 
" confession " of his wife ; alleges that he then and there granted per- 
mission to Mr. Beecher to have a private interview with Mrs. Tilton at 
which Mrs. Tilton gave him a written exculpation against everybody 
except her husband ; alleges that that exculpation distinctly affirms in 
a postscript that even her husband could not truly charge Mr. Beecher 
with crim. con., nor so much as an "improper solicitation." Note also 
that Mr. Beecher describes the letter of contrition (which is not in his 
handwriting but is signed by him) as having been taken down by a 
friend, "sentences and fragments of what I had been saying, to use them 
as a mediator," while " taking blame upon myself and pouring out my 
heart to my friend in the strongest language, overburdened with the 
exaggerations of impassioned sorrow." One sentence was, " I will die 
before any one but myself shall be inculpated." And how can that be 
reconciled with the theory of crim. con.? 

Does Mr. Tilton, then, charge his wife with crim. con. with other 
men? It is not alleged. Was Mr. Beecher confessing crim. con. with 
Mrs. Tilton which Mrs. Tilton too had confessed, but of which only Mr. 
Beecher was guilty, — unilateral crim. con. ? That is absurd. Or was 
Mr. Beecher taking to himself wholly and shielding everybody else (say 
Mrs. Beecher for example) from the charge of somehow having caused 
a conjugal rupture? "I will die before any one but myself shall be 
inculpated " is difficult to put in harmony with any crim. con. theory. 
Unless explained by something not now disclosed to the public it is not 
reconcilable with the crim. con. theory. 

The rest of the letter of contrition fits equally the crim. con. and the 
no crim. con. theory. The w r hole of the letter, including the phrase, 
"I will die before any one but myself shall be inculpated." is coi^listent 
with the explanation offered in Mr. Beecher's rejoinder. " "When serious 
difficulties sprang up in her household, it was to my wife that she re- 
sorted for counsel, and both of us, acting from sympathy, and as it sub- 
sequently appeared without full knowledge, gave unadvised counsel 
which tended to harm. I have no doubt that Mr. Tilton found that 
his wife's confidence and reliance upon my judgment had greatly in- 
creased, while his influence had diminished in consequence of a marked 
change in his religious and social views which was taking place during 
those years." 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 229 

Finally, if the letter of contrition were indeed a letter, instead of a re- 
port of outbursts of grief made in detached sentences, omitting some 
and preserving what were best suited to effect a reconciliation, then the 
last two sentences taken down by Moulton might plead in Mr. Beecher's 
favor, for they represent her forgiveness which he has, and his forgive- 
ness which he desires, as equally accessible to sincere contrition. But 
a comparison of separate sentences in such a memorandum cannot fairly 
weigh in Mr. Beecher's favor any more than against him, without what 
is lacking, a knowledge of intervening words not recorded. But the 
consistency of each separate sentence with the crim. con. or the no 
crim. con. theory does throw light. Every sentence should be perfectly 
consistent with one or the other theory. One sentence is not consistent 
with the crim. con. theory. 

II. Mr. Beecher's letter of gratitude to Moulton, a month later, is as 

follows : 

February 7, 1871. 
Mr Dear Friend Moulton : — I am glad to send you a book, etc. 

Many, many friends has God raised up to me, but to no one of them 
has he ever given the opportunity and the wisdom so to serve me as 
you have. You have also proved Theodore's friend and Elizabeth's. 
Does God look down from heaven on three unhappier creatures that 
more need a friend than these ? Is it not an intimation of God's intent 
of mercy to all that each one of these has in you a tried and proved 
friend ? But only in you are we thus united. Would to God, who 
orders all hearts, that by his kind mediation Theodore, Elizabeth, and 
I could be made friends again. Theodore will have the hardest task in 
such a case ; but has he not proved himself capable of the noblest 
things ? I wonder if Elizabeth knows how generously he has carried 
himself toward me. Of course, I can never speak with her again with- 
out his permission, and I do not know, even then, it would be best. . . . 

This is indeed the extravagance of impassioned sorrow. But crim. 
con. or no crim. con. is the test for the searcher after facts. In the first 
place it is to be noted that this letter is alleged by Tilton to be of the 
same day and date with one from Tilton to Moulton which he cites as 
follows : 

Brooklyn, February 7, 1871. 

My Dear Friend: — In several conversations with you, you have 
asked about my feelings toward Mr. Beecher, and yesterday you said the 
time had come when you would like to receive from me an expression 
of this kind in writing. I say, therefore, very cheerfully, that notwith- 
standing the great suffering which he has caused to Elizabeth and 
myself, I bear him no malice, shall do him no wrong, shall discounte- 
nance every project (by whomsoever proposed) for any exposure of his 
secret to the public, and (if I know myself at all) shall endeavor to act 
to Mr. Beecher as I would have him in similar circumstances act toward 
me. I ought to add that your own good offices in this case have led me 
to a higher moral feeling than I might otherwise have reached. Ever 
yours, affectionately, Theodore. 

To Frank Moulton. 



230 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

If crim. con. was understood by Tilton to have been confessed by Mr. 
Beecher and by Mrs. Tilton, this is the most extraordinary letter an in- 
jured husband ever wrote. 

"A little month, 
Ere yet the salt of his most righteous tears 
Had left the flushing in his galled eyes," 

and he can promise to a common friend that he " shall endeavor to act 
to Mr. Beecher as I would have him in similar circumstances act toward 
me." Does an injured husband rise so easily to that plane of moral 
feeling, and, reaching that altitude, does he with the turn of a pen put 
himself in place of Mr. Beecher, and " in similar circumstances " think 
how he would like to have an injured husband behave to him, Tilton, 
caught in crim. con. ? 

But Mr. Beecher's own letter to the same mediator, of the same day 
and date, is in equally flagrant hostility to the idea of a lately discovered 
and pardoned crim. con. It is "Theodore, Elizabeth and I "—a most 
ill-timed familiarity if the wrong had been crim. con. He praises the 
mediator for his service to him, and then adds : " You have also proved 
Theodore's friend and Elizabeth's," and sees no hindrance to the " kind 
mediation " by which " Theodore, Elizabeth and I could be made friends 
again ; " an absurd impertinence and a most preposterous expectation 
if the wrong had been crim. con. But it shocks nobody. The two let- 
ters, according to Tilton, are addressed to a common mediator. Mr. 
Beecher is not surprised by the ease with which Tilton puts himself in 
his place, and does as he would be done by if he were detected in crim. 
con. Tilton is not shocked by the tone of Mr. Beecher's letter praying 
a renewal of the triple friendship, its unconscious air of pastoral, or at 
least personal, domination. " Theodore will have the hardest task in 
such a case." On the contrary, according to Tilton himself, it helps 
" to bind Mr, Beecher and Mr. Tilton by mutual expressions of a good 
spirit." Crim. con., then, or no crim. con. ? Of Mr. Beecher's letter of 
gratitude, it must be said that, read by itself, it is not absolutely incon- 
sistent with a detected crim. con., though very extraordinary upon any 
theory of human nature. Read by the light of Tilton's companion 
letter and of the circumstances detailed by Tilton himself, it is consistent 
with a theory of no crim. con., of a wrong done to both husband and 
wife, of a wrong which Tilton can imagine himself to have done "in 
similar circumstances," and where Mr. Beecher can say "he would have 
been a better man in my circumstances." Read in the light of Tilton's 
companion letter and recital of facts, Mr. Beecher's letter is not consis- 
tent with crim. con. Every line and word should be perfectly consistent 
with one or the other theory. Some sentences, and its whole tone, are 
not consistent with the crim. con. theory. 

III. Mr. Beecher's own letter of advice to Mrs. Tilton of still the same 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 231 

day and date gives and receives light from the two foregoing letters. Like 
the rather artful phrase in Mr. Tilton's letter about " any exposure ot his 
secret," it confirms the impression that the wrong done by Mr. Beecher 
was something tending to a conjugal rupture, of which the consumma- 
tion would let loose the "storm ready to burst on our heads." Even if 
the lips of both the Tiltons had been sealed, such a rupture with which Mr. 
Beecher was wholly or partly chargeable would have been likely, while 
human tongues wag at their present rate and slight impulsion, to have 
let loose a storm to drown Plymouth Church itself, and cleave the 
general ear with horrid speech. Creatures like the Woodhull live and 
print, and newspaper reporters interview her at every stopping-place 
from San Francisco to New York, and newspapers print what, for her 
sex's sake, we hope are not her words. 

Mr. Beecher's letter of advice to Mrs. Tilton, we are told by Mr. Til- 
ton, was addressed by his permission : 

Brooklyn, February 7, 1871. 
My Dear Mrs. Tilton: — When I saw you last I did not expect ever 
to see you again, or to be alive many days. God was kinder to me than 
were my own thoughts. The friend whom God sent to me, Mr. Moul- 
ton, has proved, above all friends that I ever had, able and willing to 
help me in this terrible emergency of my life. His hand it was that 
tied up the storm that was ready to burst on our heads. You have no 
friend (Theodore excepted) who has it in his power to serve you so 
vitally, and who will do it with such delicacy and honor. It does my 
sore heart good to see in Mr. Moulton an unfeigned respect and honor 
for you. It would kill me if I thought otherwise. He will be as true a 
friend to- your honor and happiness as a brother could be to a sister's. 
In him we have a common ground. You and 1 may meet in him. The 
past is ended. But is there no future ? No wiser, higher, holier future? 
May not this friend stand as a priest in the new sanctuary of reconcilia- 
tion and mediate and bless Theodore and my most unhappy self? Do 
not let my earnestness fail of its end. You believe in my judgment. 
I have put myself wholly and gladly in Moulton's hand, and there I 
must meet you. This is sent with Theodore's consent, but he has not 
read it. Will you return it to me by his own hand ? 1 am very earnest 
in this wish for all our sakes, as such a letter ought not to be subject to 
even a chance of miscarriage. Your unhappy friend, 

H. W. Beecher. 

The essential fact apparent in this letter is that, with Tilton's con- 
sent, Mr. Beecher commends Mr. Moulton to Mrs. Tilton as her best 
adviser. That fact is absurdly difficult to reconcile with the crim. con. 
theory. In this letter, as in the letter of gratitude to Moulton, Mr. 
Beecher undertakes to be and is accepted by all parties as the definer 
of their new and future relations, as the moral adviser and definer of 
them. That is consistent with a wrong done to husband and wife, but 
absurdly inconsistent with a detected crim. con. Every line and word 
should be perfectly consistent with one or the other theory. Its heated 



232 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

phrases here and there tolerate the suggestion of the worst of conjugal 
wrongs. Its whole purport is not consistent with the criin. con. theory. 
IV. Mr. Beecher's letter of non-resistance to Moulton is two years 
later in its date, June 1. 1873. It was called out, Tilton says, by the 
publication of the tripartite covenant, dated April 2, 1872, in which 
covenant Tilton, with the other signers, " earnestly desired to restore 
each to the other the respect, love, and fraternity in which we once 
lived happily together," by the public comments interpreting Tilton aa 
the injuring and Mr. Beecher as the injured man, and by Tilton's pro- 
posal to show by publishing a few lines from the letter of contrition 
that the reverse was the case : 

My Dear Frank:— I am determined to make no more resistance. 
Theodore's temperament is such that the future, even if temporarily 
earned, would be absolutely worthless, and rendering me liable at any 
hour of the day to be obliged to stultify all the devices by which we 
saved ourselves. It is only fair that he should know that the publica- 
tion of the card which he proposes would leave him worse off than be- 
fore. The agreement (viz., the "tripartite covenant") was made after 
my letter through you to him (viz., the " apology ") was written. He 
had had it a year. He had condoned his wife's fault. He had enjoined 
upon me, with the utmost earnestness and solemnity, not to betray his 
wife, nor leave his children to a blight. . . . With such a man as T. T., 
there is no possible salvation for any that depend upon him. _ With a 
strong nature, he does not know how to govern it. . . . There is no use 
m trying further. I have a strong feeling upon me, and it brings great 
peace, that I am spending my last Sunday, and preaching my last 
sermon. 

Tilton publishes himself in this letter as enjoining upon Mr. Beecher 
"with the utmost earnestness and solemnity not to betray his wife 
(Mrs. Tilton), nor leave his children to a blight." The rest of the note 
is consistent with the theory of a detected crim. con. in every line and 
word. It would suggest such a theory to the most impartial mind. It 
would compel Mr. Beecher's dearest friend to tolerate the suggestion. 
But the phrase we have quoted may suggest fifty things : Mrs. Tilton's 
greater love for Mr. Beecher than for her husband ; some "wife's fault," 
which Tilton had condoned, it distinctly affirms ; " all the devices by 
which we (Tilton and Mr. Beecher) saved ourselves" from public mis- 
conception and reproach, and the harsher judgment which would have 
followed a conjugal rupture in anywise chargeable to Mr. Beecher — 
these it distinctly admits ; but among these fifty things that one phrase 
does not suggest the guilty partner in a detected crim. con. Him a 
clergyman, before the public daily, did an injured husband ever " enjoin 
with utmost earnestness and solemnity" not to betray his wife? Every 
line and word of "Mr. Beecher's own letters should be perfectly consist- 
ent with one or the other theory, crim. con. or not crim. con. That 
phrase is not consistent snith the crim. con. theory. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 



233 




ffllfe^ 



REPORTERS FOR THE NEW YORK PRESS FOLLOWING A WITNESS ON HER 
RETURN FROM THE COMMITTEE ROOM. 



V. and VI. The two remaining letters of Mr. Beecher to Mr. Moulton 
are akin in their purport. Both explicitly anticipate, with a sensitive- 
ness not unbecoming however misjudging, that the publication by Til- 
ton of his letter of contrition would terminate the usefulness, the happi- 
ness, and the career of the pastor and preacher. The latter anticipates 
that the publication would be equally fatal to Tilton, but says " sacrifice 
me without hesitation, if you can clearly see your way to his safety 
and happiness thereby." 

MR. BEECHER TO MR. MOULTON. 

No man can see the difficulties that environ me unless he stands 
where I do. To say that I have a church on my hands is simple 
enough, but to have the hundreds and thousands of men pressing me, 
each one with his keen suspicion, or anxiety, or zeal, to see the tenden- 
cies which, if not stopped, would break out into a ruinous defence of me ; 
to stop them without seeming to do it; to prevent any one questioning 
me : to meet and allay prejudices against T., which had their beginning 
years before ; to keep serene, as if I was not alarmed or disturbed ; to 
be cheerful at home and among friends when I was suffering the tor- 
ments of the damned : to pass sleepless nights often, and yet to come 
no fresh and fair for Sunday — all this may be talked about, but the real 
thing cannot be understood from the outside, nor its wearing and grind- 
ing on the nervous system. 



234 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

MR. BEECHER TO MR. MOULTON. 

If my destruction would place him (Mr. Tilton) all right, that shall 
not stand in the way ; I am willing to step down and out. No one can 
offer more than that. That I do offer. Sacrifice me without hesitation, 
if you can clearly see your way to his safety and happiness thereby! 
In one point of view I could desire the sacrifice on my part. Nothing 
can possibly be so bad as the power of great darkness in which 1 spend 
much of my time. 1 look upon death as sweeter far than any friend I 
have in the world. Life would be pleasant if I could see that rebuilt 
which is shattered. But to live on the sharp and ragged edge of 
anxiety, remorse, fear, despair, and yet to pat on an appearance of 
serenity and happiness, cannot be endured much longer. 1 am well 
nigh discouraged. If you cease to trust me, to love me, I am alone; I 
do not know any person in the world to whom I could go. 

Both of these letters in their lines and words appear to us consistent 
with the crim. con. theory. They are neither of them inconsistent, how- 
ever, with the no crim. con. theory. 

Thus, then, the case stands. Judging Mr. Beecher by his own letters, 
with no other light than they cast upon one another, or than is cast 
upon them by Tilton himself, and excluding all the explanations made 
by his friends, and all the light which Mr. Beecher himself may yet 
throw by detailing the primary facts in the case and the set of circum- 
stances under which each letter was written ; taking crim. con. or no 
crim. con. as the single test to be applied in the careful analysis of every 
line and word of Mr. Beecher's own most " private and confidential 
letters," we reach this result. 

All the letters are consistent with the no crim. con. theory. Two of 
the letters are consistent with either theory. Four of the letters are 
inconsistent with the crim. con. theory. 

" If his occulted guilt 
Do not itself unkennel in one speech, 
It is a damned ghost that we have seen, 
And men's imaginations are as foul 
As Vulcan's stithy." 

In order to present his defence in proper shape, and to ex- 
plain the letters quoted by Tilton, Mr. Beecher very naturally 
desired to obtain possession of the originals, that he might 
refresh his memory by an examination of them. These had 
been intrusted by Mr. Beecher to the keeping of Mr. Francis 
D. Moulton, the " mutual friend " of himself and Tilton. Just 
why Mr. Beecher should have placed his private correspondence 
in the hands of a third party is a circumstance hard to under- 
stand. It was a foolish act, and a great error upon his part, 
and certainly he has grievously atoned for it. 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 235 

Upon the publication of Tilton's statement, Mr. Beecher 
applied to Mr. Moulton for the return of the documents in- 
trusted to him. His letter was as follows : 

July 24, 1874. 

My Dear Mr. Moulton : — I am making out a statement, and I need 
the letters and papers in your hands. Will you send me, by Tracy, all 
the originals of my papers ? Let them be numbered, and an inventory 
taken, and I will return them to you as soon as I can see and compare, 
get dates, make extracts or copies, as the case may be. 

Will you send me "Bowen's Heads of Difficulty," and all letters of 
my sister, if any are with you ? 

I heard you were sick — are you about again ? God grant you to see 
peaceful times. 

Yours gratefully, H. W. Beecher. 

F. D. Moulton. 

To this note Mr. Beecher received no reply. After waiting 
several days, during which it was ascertained that Mr. Moulton 
had left Brooklyn, a messenger was despatched to his summer 
residence with the following note : 

Brooklyn, July 28, 1874. 

My Dear Friend : — The Committee of Investigation are waiting 
mainly for you before closing their labors. I, too, earnestly wish that 
you would come and clear your mind and memory of everything that 
can bear on the case. I pray you also to bring all letters and papers 
relating to it which will throw light upon it, and bring to a result this 
protracted case. 

I trust that Mrs. M. has been reinvigorated, and that her need of your 
care will not be so great as to detain you. 

Truly yours, H. W. Beecher. 

F. D. Moulton, Esq. 

The messenger did not succeed in finding Mr. Moulton at 
his summer residence at Narragansett, and after a vain search 
for him returned to Brooklyn, and left the note at Mr. Moul- 
ton's house. 

49 Eemsen Street, Brooklyn, August 4. 1874. 

My Dear Mr. Beecher :— I received your note of July 24, informing 
me that you are making a statement, and need the letters and papers 
in my hands, and asking me to send to you for the purpose of having 
extracts or copies made from them, as the case may be, that you may 
use them in your controversy with Mr. Tilton. 

I should be very glad to do anything that I may do, consistent with 



236 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

my sense of what is due to justice and right, to aid you ; but if you will 
reflect that I hold all the important papers intrusted to me at the desire 
and request, and in the confidence of both parties to this unhappy 
affair, you will see that I cannot in honor give them or any of them to 
either party to aid him as against the other. I have not given or 
shown to Mr. Tilton any documents or papers relating to your affairs 
since the renewal of your controversy, which had been once adjusted. 

I need not tell you how deeply I regret your position as foes each to 
the other after my long and, as you, I have no doubt, fully believe, hon- 
est and faithful effort to have you otherwise. 

I will sacredly hold all the papers and information I have until both 
parties shall request me to make them public, or to deliver them into 
the hands of either or both, or to lay them before the committee, or I 
am compelled in a court of justice to produce them, if I can be so 
compelled. 

My regret that I am compelled to this course is softened by my 
belief that you will not be substantially injured by it in this regard ; for 
all the facts are of course known to you, and I am bound to believe and 
assume that in the statement you are preparing you will only set forth 
the exact facts; and, if so, the documents, when produced, will only 
confirm, and cannot contradict, what you may state, so that you will 
suffer no loss. 

If, on the contrary — which I cannot presume — you desire the posses- 
sion of the documents in order that you may prove your statement in a 
manner not to be contravened by the facts set forth in them to the dis- 
advantage of Mr. Tilton, I should be then aiding you in doing that 
which I cannot believe the strictest and firmest friendship for you call 
upon me to do. With grateful recollections of your kind confidence 
and trust in me, I am very truly yours, 

F. D. Moulton. 

Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Mr. Moulton's action in this matter up to the writing of this 
note had perplexed the outside public n 7 ery greatly, but it seems 
that up to this period Mr. Beecher had regarded him as his 
friend. The refusal of Mr. Moulton to comply with Mr. 
Beecher's very proper demand for his own letters opened the 
eyes of all parties as to the true position of the " mutual 
friend." Tilton had been able to use documents intrusted in 
confidence to Moulton, and when Beecher asked for an inspec- 
tion of the originals, he was refused. The public from this 
moment became satisfied that Mr. Moulton had dropped the 
character of "mutual friend," and had joined Tilton in the war 



THE BROOKLYK SCANDAL. 237 

upon Beecher. Mr. Moulton has since then presented his jus- 
tification, which will be found in these pages, but he has not 
succeeded in relieving himself of the suspicion of betraying the 
confidence reposed in him by Mr. Beecher for the benefit of 
Tilton. 

Mr. Beecher, now perceiving the true position of Moulton, 
addressed him a peremptory demand for the production of all 
his papers in Moulton's possession before the committee. His 
letter and Moulton's reply were as follows : 

Brooklyn, August 4, 1874. 
F. D. Moulton, Esq. : 

Sir : — Your letter bearing date Aug. 4, 1874, is this moment received. 
Allow me to express my regret and astonishment that you refuse me 
permission even to see certain letters and papers in your possession, 
relating to charges made against me by Theodore Tilton, and at the 
reasons given for the refusal. 

On your solemn and repeated assurances of personal friendship, and 
in the unquestioning confidence with which you inspired me with your 
honor and fidelity, I placed in your hands for safe-keeping various letters 
addressed to me from my brother, my sister, and various other parties ; 
also memoranda of affairs not immediately connected with Mr. Tilton's 
matters. I also from time to time addressed you confidential notes re- 
lating to my own self, as one friend would write to another. These 
papers were never placed in your house to be held for two parties, nor 
to be used in any way. They were to be held for me. I did not wish 
them to be subject to risk of loss or scattering, from my careless habit 
in the matter of preserving documents. They were to be held for me. 
In so far as these papers were concerned, you were only a friendly 
trustee, holding papers subject to my wishes. 

Mr. Tilton has made a deadly assault upon me, and has used letters 
and fragments of letters, purporting to be copies of these papers. Are 
these extracts genuine? Are they garbled? What are their dates? 
What, if anything, has been left out, and what put in ? 

You refuse my demand for these papers on the various pleas, that if 
I speak the truth in my statement I do not need them ; that if I make 
a successful use of them it will be an injury to Mr. Tilton, and that you, 
as a friend of both parties, are bound not to aid either in any act that 
shall injure the other. 

But I do not desire to injure any one, but to repel an injury attempted 
upon me by the use of papers committed sacredly to your care. These 
documents have been seen and copied ; they have been hawked for sale 



233 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

in New York newspaper offices ; what purport to be my confidential 
notes to you are on the market. 

But when I demand a sight of the originals of papers of which you 
are only a trustee, that I may defend myself, you refuse, because you 
are the friend of both parties ! Mr. Tilton has access to your depository 
for materials with which to strike me ; but I am not permitted to use 
them in defending myself. 

I do not ask you to place before the committee any papers which Mr. 
Tilton may have given you. But I do demand that you forthwith place 
before the committee every paper which I have written or deposited 
with you. Truly yours, H. W. Beecuer. 

MR. MOULTON'S ANSWER TO MR. BEECHER. 

46 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, August 5, 1874. 
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher : 

My Dear Sir : — In all our acquaintance and friendship I have never 
received from you a letter of the tone of yours of August 4. It seems 
unlike yourself, and to have been inspired by the same ill advisers who 
had so lamentably carried your private affairs before a committee of 
your church and thence before the public. 

In reply let me remind you that during the whole of the past four 
years all the documents, notes and memoranda which you and Mr. 
Tilton have intrusted to me, have been so intrusted because they had a 
reference to your mutual differences. I hold no papers, either of yours 
or his, except such as bear on this case. You speak of " memoranda of 
affairs not immediately connected with the Tilton matter." You 
probably allude to the memoranda of your difficulties with Mr. Bowen, 
but these have a direct reference to your present case with Mr. Tilton, 
and were deposited with me by you because of such reference. You 
speak also of a letter or two from your brother and sister, and I am sure 
you have not forgotten the apprehension which we entertained lest Mrs. 
Hooker should fulfil a design which she foreshadowed to invade your 
pulpit and read to your congregation a confession of your intimacy with 
Mrs. Tilton. 

You speak of other papers which I hold "subject to your wishes." I 
hold none such, nor do I hold any subject to Mr. Tilton's wishes. The 
papers which I hold, both yours and his, were not given to be subject 
to the wishes of either of the parties. But the very object of my hold- 
ing them has been, and still is, to prevent the wish of one party from 
being injuriously exercised against the other. 

You are incorrect in saying that Mr. Tilton has had access to my 
" depository of materials ; " on the contrary, I have refused Mr. Tilton 
such access. During the preparation of his sworn statement he came 
to me and said his case would be incomplete unless I permitted him to 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 239 

use all the documents, but I refused; and all he could rely upon were 
such notes as he had made from time to time from writings of yours 
which you had written to me to be read to him, and passages of which 
he caught from my lips in shorthand. Mr. Tilton has seen only a part 
of the papers in my possession, and would be more surprised to learn 
the entire facts of the case than you can possibly be. 

What idle rumors may have existed in newspaper offices I know not ; 
but they have nut come from me. 

In closing- your letter you say, " I do not ask you to place before the 
committee any papers which Mr. Tilton may "have given you; but I do 
demand that you forthwith place before the committee every paper 
which I have written or deposited with you." In reply I can only say 
that I cannot justly place before the committee the papers of one of the 
parties without doing the same with the papers of the other, and I can- 
not do this honorably except either by legal process compelling me, or 
else by consent in writing, not only of yourself, but of Mr. Tilton, with 
whom I shall confer on the subject as speedily as possible. 

You will, I trust, see a greater spirit of justice in this reply than you 
have infused into your unusual letter of August 4. 

Very respectfully, Francis D. Moulton. 

Mr. Moulton was now in a most unhappy predicament for 
himself. His pretence of friendship for both parties was ex- 
ploded, and it was absolutely necessary for him to speak in his 
own defence. As a preliminary step, he addressed the follow- 
ing note to Mr. Tilton, asking his consent to the step demanded 
of him by Mr. Beecher : 

Brooklyn, August 5, 1874. 
Theodore Tilton, Esq.: 

My Dear Sir : — 1 have received, under date of July 28. a letter from 
the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, in which he expresses the wish that I 
would go before the Investigating Committee and " clear my mind and 
memory of everything that can bear on this case," referring, of course, 
to the controversy between you and him. 

I cannot, in view of my confidential relations with you, make any 
statement before the Investigating Committee, unless 3 T ou release me, 
as Mr. Beecher has done, explicitly from my obligation to maintain 
your confidence. 

If you will express to me clearly a request that I should go before the 
Investigating Committee and state any and all facts within my knowl- 
edge concerning your case with Mr. Beecher. and exhibit to them any 
or all documents in my possession relating thereto, I shall, in view of 



240 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Mr. Beecher's letter, consider myself at liberty to accede to the request 
of the committee, to state such facts and exhibit such documents. 

Very respectfully, 

Francis D. Moulton. 
To this letter Mr. Tilton replied as follows : 

Brooklyn, August 5, 1874. 
Francis D. Moulton, Esq. : 

My Dear Sir :— In response to your note of this day, mentioning 
Mr. Beecher's request that you should exhibit to the committee the 
facts and documents hitherto held in confidence by you touching his 
difference with me, I hereby give you notice that you have my own con- 
sent and request to do the same. Yours truly, 

Theodore Tilton. 

XIX. 

MR. MOULTOX'S SECOXD APPEARANCE. 

After the receipt of the noteof Mr. Tilton, given above, 
Mr. Moulton had no longer any reason for withholding the in- 
formation demanded of him. Accordingly, on the night of 
the 5th of August, he appeared before the committee, and read 
the following document to them : 

Gentlemen of the Committee: — I have received your invitation to 
appear before you. I have been ready, on any proper occasion, to dis- 
close all the facts and documents known to me or in my possession re- 
lating to the subject-matter of your inquiry, but I have found myself 
embarrassed because of my peculiar relations to the parties to the con- 
troversy. Friendly for years to all of them, and at the time of the out- 
break of this miserable business having the kindest feeling toward each, 
I endeavored to avert the calamity that has now fallen upon all. Most 
fully and confidently trusted by all parties, it became necessary that I 
should know the exact and simple truth of every fact and circumstance 
of the controversy, as I was made by mutual consent in some sort the 
arbiter of the affair, and, after the estrangement, the medium of com- 
munication between the parties, each saying in writing to me such 
things as were desired to be said or written to the others ; and in such 
case I gave the information or showed the communication to the person 
intended to receive or be aCected by it. Under these circumstances I 
have not felt at liberty to give testimony or facts thus obtained in the 
sacredness of confidence before a tribunal not authorized by law to re- 
quire them, however much otherwise I might respect its members and 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 241 

objects, without the consent of the parties from whom I received the 
disclosures and documents. With the consent or request of Mr. Beecher 
or Mr. Tilton, I have held myself ready, sorrowingly, to give all tlte 
facts that I know about the objects of inquiry of the committee, and 
produce whatever papers I have to the committee, and leave copies of 
the same with them, if they desired it, with perhaps the one stipulation 
that if I have to give my evidence orally or to be cross-examined, I 
might bring with me a phonographic reporter, in order that I should 
have an exact copy of my testimony, for my own protection. 

I am to-day in receipt, from the Rev. Henry "Ward Beecher and Mr. 
Theodore Tilton, of their consent and request, thus absolving me there- 
by from my confidential relations toward them, to appear before you, 
and to give to you the facts and documents with reference to the differ- 
ences between them. 

It appears to me that as Mr. Tilton has given his evidence, and Mrs. 
Tilton likewise, Mr. Beecher should be requested to add his own, in 
order that the three principal parties in the case shall have been inde- 
pendently heard on their own responsibility before I am called to adduce 
the facts in my possession, derived from them all. 

Nevertheless, since I am now fully released from my confidential re- 
lations with the parties involved in this sad affair, and since my only 
proper statement must consist of the truth, the whole truth, and noth- 
ing but the truth, I see no special reason why it may not be made at 
one time as well as at another, but as my statement will necessarily in- 
clude a great multiplicity of facts and papers, I must ask a little delay- 
to arrange and copy them. Accordingly, 1 suggest Saturday evening, 
August 8, as an evening convenient for me to lay my statement before 
the committee. 

The committee adjourned at midnight and passed silently 
away. 

XX. 
FRANCIS D. MOULTOX. 

(THE MUTUAL FRIEND). 

Mr. Moulton has figured so prominently in the controversy 
that some knowledge of him is necessary to a proper under- 
standing of the case. 

He is about thirty-two years of age, and is said to be a man 
of fine education and commanding business talents. After 
passing through college, he received an appointment to the 
16 



242 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Military Academy at West Point, but declined it because of his 
then delicate health. Upon the recommendation of Peter 
Cooper, Esq., he was received into the mercantile establishment 
of Woodruff & Robinson, of New Ygrk. By diligent applica- 
tion to business he soon won the confidence of the firm, and 
was rapidly advanced, becoming, at length, a partner in the 
house. He has been a very successful merchant, and is now 
a man of considerable wealth. " In manners he impresses one 
as being a gentleman of refinement, with just enough of the 
way of the world in his make up to preclude the idea of effemi- 
nacy. He wears a heavy brown moustache that looks as if it 
were never combed or cared for. His manner is direct and 
business-like. He is slightly over the medium height, straight 
and muscular. He talks freely, but when discussing business 
speaks rather slowly and with precision. His admiration for 
General Butler, his personal friend, whom he has consulted 
in this case, is based upon that gentleman's force of character, 
and the success with which he uniformly accomplishes his 
ends." 

It has been a matter of surprise to the outside world that 
Mr. Beech er should have honored Mr. Moulton with such an 
extraordinary degree of his friendship. Certainly there seemed 
little to draw the two men together. One was a man of world- 
wide fame, of advanced age, and scholarly tastes and pursuits, 
and a clergyman ; the other scarcely known out of his own im- 
mediate circle, simply a man of average abilities, a young man, 
and one who made no pretensions to religious life or thought. 
"Mr. Beecher," says Mrs. Stowe, writing in 1868, "had inher- 
ited from his father what has been called a genius for friendship. 
He was never without the anchor of an enthusiastic personal 
attachment for somebody." 

Men with such a predisposition to friendship are apt to (to 
use Mr. Beecher's own words) " slop over." Certainly Mr. 
Beecher did choose unwisely in selecting Mr. Moulton as his 
intimate friend and confidant. Moulton, however, had been 
Tilton's friend, and Theodore had confided to him the story of 
his imaginary wrongs. He came to Mr. Beecher with profes- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 243 

sions of the warmest esteem for him and of his desire to settle 
the controversy peaceably and quietly, and being a prepossessing 
and most plausible man, won the pastor's friendship, which was 
given with characteristic unreserve. 

" We find Moulton," says the Investigating Committee, in 
their final report, " quietly becoming the friend of both parties 
— the mutual friend. Mr. Moulton, as he discloses his char- 
acter in these proceedings, appears to be a very plausible man, 
with more vigor of will than conscience. One thing is unfortu- 
nately clear, that from this time on he contrived to obtain and 
hold the confidence of Mr. Beecher both in his ability and pur- 
pose to keep the peace in good faith. There was certainly 
room for an honest peacemaker. Mr. Beecher knew he had been 
falsely accused of an impure offence, and that a reputable 
woman by some means had been induced to make the accusa- 
tion. It is true the charge had been withdrawn, and its force 
was in a sense broken. Still the fact remained — he had been 
accused. 

" Mr. Beecher naturally felt that the situation was critical. 
For him, a clergyman of world-wide fame, to be even falsely 
accused was a calamity. To prevent publicity would save a 
still greater calamity. He felt — and in the light of results may 
we not say he was right ? — that a public charge of such an 
offence would, as he expressed it in his letter to Moulton of 
February 5, 'make a conflagration.' For reasons of malice and 
revenge, it became apparent that Tilton was preparing to make 
a deadly assault upon him. This Mr. Beecher believed it was 
his supreme duty to prevent by all possible honorable means. 
Moulton professed to deprecate Tilton's purpose, and declared 
if Mr. Beecher would trust to him he could and would prevent 
it. And so now began a series of letters and steps under the 
direction of the mutual friend, having for their object, as Mr. 
Beecher believed, the suppression of the scandal and the restor- 
ation, in some measure, if practicable, of Tilton to position and 
employment." 

That Mr. Moulton understood the charge against Mr. Beecher 
at this time to be " improper solicitations of Mrs. Tilton" is 



244 THE TRUE HISTOKY OF 

evident from the fact that he regarded the offence alleged by 
Tilton as one that could be apologized for and forgiven. It 
would be an outrageous wrong to him to imagine that he could 
hold that Tilton ought under any circumstances to renew 
his friendly relations with, or accept the bounty of, the man he 
believed to be the seducer of his wife. 

Not only was Mr. Moulton aware of the true nature of Tilton's 
first charge against Mr. Beecher, but he also believed Mr. 
Beecher to be innocent of wrong in the matter. About the 1st 
of June, 1873, Mr. Beecher, becoming disheartened at the ill- 
success of his efforts to keep the scandal quiet, had half formed 
a resolution to let it take its course, and make his defence in a 
statement to the public, and on that day he wrote to Moulton, 
" My mind is clear ; I am not in haste ; I shall write for the 
public a statement that will bear the light of the Judgment 
Day. God will take care of me and mine." Certainly these 
are strange words for a guilty man. They breathe but one sen- 
timent — conscious rectitude and a consequent trust in God. 
Mr. Moulton, however, did not wish publicity. He replied to 
Mr. Beecher, beginning his letter thus : " If the truth must be 
spoken, let it be. I know you can stand if the whole case was 
published to-morrow." "Apparently fearing this might rather 
tend to determine Mr. Beecher to publish the whole case than 
otherwise, he crossed out these and other lines with a pencil 
and commenced anew. In this new effort, on the same paper, 
these words occur : ' You can stand if the whole case were pub- 
lished to-morrow/ " Whatever Mr. Moulton may now allege, 
his written words must stand against him. 

Mr. Moulton gave Mr. Beecher very bad advice during the 
progress of the affair, and under the influence of the " mutual 
friend " Mr. Beecher exhibited a degree of timidity and moral 
cowardice which he has bitterly paid for. Yet all this while 
he trusted Moulton, who, by his own showing, was using his 
influence over him for Tilton's benefit. Nor did Mr. Beecher 
suspect the true character of the " mutual friend " until the 
publication of Tilton's statement containing copies of letters 
confided to Moul ton's keeping, and the refusal of the " mutual 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 245 

friend " to allow Beecher access to the originals of these papers, 
made it seem that Moulton was using the confidence reposed in 
him for Tilton and against Beecher. 

The New York Graphic, which is popularly supposed to 
speak for Mr. Moulton, and to express his sentiments, gives 
what is regarded as the gist of Moulton's reasons for his refusal 
of Mr. Beecher's request (see edition of August 6) in the fol- 
lowing : " It is obvious at a glance that the papers once in Mr. 
Beecher's hands would be at his disposal and might be destroyed 
by some of his indiscreet or over zealous friends." In asking 
for these papers in his first letter — that of July 24 — Mr. 
Beecher asked Mr. Moulton to number and take an inventory 
of the papers he asked for. This placed it» in Moulton's power 
to prove the destruction or suppression of any of them. Such 
destruction or suppression would have been fatal to Mr. 
Beecher, and it is not for a moment to be supposed that either 
he or any of his friends would have inflicted such damage upon 
his case, or at least have pointed out to Mr. Moulton the means 
of fastening such action upon them. 

Mr. Moulton's position in this scandal has been peculiar, and 
he has come out of it not in the manner he must have desired. 
Many hard things have been said of him, many serious charges 
made against him ; but it must be confessed that the most se- 
rious injuries he has experienced in the affair have been those 
he has inflicted upon himself by his own admitted acts and his 
published statements. 



XXI. 

MR. MOULTON'S THIRD APPEARANCE. 

On" the 10th of August, to which date Mr. Moulton's ap- 
pearance had been postponed by mutual consent, that gentleman 
appeared before the committee, and laid before them copies of 
some of the documents he had been requested to produce. The 
official report of this session of the committee is as follows: 



246 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

The committee met at 3 p. m. All the members were present. At 
about 5 o'clock Francis D. Moulton, who was expected at the opening 
of the session, made his appearance, when, with the consent of the com- 
mittee, he read the following statement, prefacing it with the remarks : 

" I submit to you, first, the invitation signed by your chairman, July 
27, 1874; next, the invitation of your chairman, signed July 28, and 
next, the invitation of your chairman, signed August 4," (laying copies 
of these invitations on the table before him.) 

STATEMENT OF MR. MOULTON. 

Gentlemen of the Committee :— When I was last before you I stated 
that I would, at your request, produce such documents as I had, and 
make such statement of facts as had come to my. knowledge on the sub- 
ject of your inquiry. I fully intended so to do, and have prepared my 
statement of facts as sustained by the documents, and made an exhibit 
of all the papers that have come in any way into my possession, bear- 
ing on the controversy between the parties. That statement must, of 
course, bear with more or less force upon one or the other of them. 
On mature reflection, aided by the advice of my most valued friends, I 
have reconsidered that determination, and am obliged to say to you 
that I feel compelled, from a sense of duty to the parties, to my relation 
to their controversy, and to myself, neither to make the statement nor 
to produce the documents. 

When T first became a party to the unhappy controversy between 
Beecher and Tilton, I had no personal knowledge, nor any document in 
my possession which could affect either. Everything that I know of 
fact, or have received of papers, has come to me in the most sacred 
confidence, to be used for the purpose of composing and settling all 
difficulties between them, and of preventing, so far as possible, any 
knowledge of their private affairs being brought to the public notice. 
For this purpose all their matters have been intrusted to me, and for 
none other. If I should now use them, it would be not for the purpose 
of peace and reconciliation, but to voluntarily take part in a controversy 
which they have seen fit to renew between themselves. How faithfully, 
earnestly, and honestly I have labored to do my duty to the parties for 
peace, they both know. The question for me to settle for myself, and 
no other, is now, ought I to do anything to aid either party in a renewed 
controversy by use of that which I received and have used only to pro- 
mote harmony ? On my honor and conscience, I think I ought not. 
And at the risk of whatever of misconstruction and vituperation may 
come upon me, I must adhere to the dictates of my own judgment, and 
preserve, at least, my own self-respect. 

I call attention again to the fact that yours is a mere voluntary tri- 
bunal, and whatever I do here is done by a voluntary and not compelled 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 247 

witness. Whether before any tribunal having the power to compel the 
production of testimony and statement of fact, I shall ever produce 
these papers, or give any of these confidential statements, I reserve to 
myself to judge of the emergency, which I hope may never come. 
Against my wish — as I never have been in sympathy with a renewal 
of this conflict — a part of these documents have been given to the pub- 
lic. In so far, confidence in regard to them has ceased. It is but just, 
therefore, and due to the parties, that the whole of those documents. 
portions of which only have been given, shall be put into your hands, 
in response to the thrice-renewed request of the committee. I have, 
therefore, copies of them which I produce here and place in the hands 
of the committee, with the hope and request, that after they have been 
examined by them, they may be returned to me. If any controversy 
shall arise as to the authenticity of the copies, or of the documents on 
that point, I shall hold myself open to speak. With this exception — 
except in defence of my own honor and the uprightness of my course 
in all this unfortunate and unhappy business, the purity and candor of 
which I appeal to the consciences of both parties to sustain — I do not 
propose, and hope I may never be called upon hereafter to speak, either 
as to the facts, or to produce any paper that I have received from 
either of the parties involved herein. Fraxcis D. Modlton. 

[The letters will appear in Mr. Beecher's statement, with an explana- 
tion of each.] 

THE DEBATE WITH THE COMMITTEE. 
Mr. Winslow — Mr. Moulton, the committee desire me to ask you 
some questions, notwithstanding the position you take here in your writ- 
ten statement. You are well aware, as you show, by the three invita- 
tions which the committee have sent you, that we are in good faith pur- 
suing an investigation. You will remember that we were appointed by 
the pastor of Plymouth Church, with the sanction and approval of the 
examining committee of that church, to inquire into all these matters 
relating to the alleged grievances of Mr. Tilton.* The letter of authority 
that comes to us is not limited. No restrictions are put upon us of any 
kind. We are invited to examine all the sources of evidence, and we 
have looked upon you as one of the principal sources of evidence. We 
have waited some two or three weeks to get your testimony, and I am 
sure I express the feeling of the committee when I express a sense of 
disappointment at the position you take. Of course we know that we 
are not a court with compulsory powers. W r e are, as you state, a mere 
voluntary tribunal. You can do exactly as you please ; we await your 
pleasure; but what I desire to know is, in behalf of the committee, 
whether you have so deliberately formed this purpose as to make it 
beyond recall, as things now stand. 



243 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Mr. Moulton— In reply to what you have said, and with reference to 
my appearance here, so far as you are concerned in this committee, I 
call your attention to the language of your own invitation, namely, this: 
" We earnestly request that you bring all letters and documents in your 
possession which are referred to by Theodore Tilton in his statement 
before the committee." I comply with the request of this committee, 
and produce copies of the letters referred to by Mr. Tilton. the authen- 
ticity of which I am ready within a few moments to establish. 

Q. Do you mean to have us understand, Mr. Moulton, that you have 
personally compared the originals with these copies, so that you know 
of your own knowledge that they are correct? A. 1 mean to state 
exactly what I have stated. 

Mr. AVinslow — You have not stated anything on that point. 

Mr. Moulton — Yes, I stated that these are copies of the letters which 
you requested, referred to in Mr. Theodore Tilton's documents. 

Q. Do you state of your own personal knowledge that they are copies, 
or have you trusted to somebody else to make copies and compose 
them? A. I beg pardon, sir; I am willing to authenticate these copies 
whenever you wish that they should be authenticated. 

Q. Cannot you now be induced, Mr. Moulton, to go on, notwithstand- 
ing what has happened, and give us a full statement of all your knowl- 
edge in these matters ? A. I stand upon the communication which I 
have made to you to-day, sir. 

Q. And that you do not mean to change ? A. Not without sufficient 
reason. 

Mr. Winslow — Of course I am now referring to the present moment. 
A. Yes. sir. 

Mr. AYixslow — There is another point that I would like to ask you 
about. Mr. Moulton. Considering the great importance of these letters, I 
submit to you whether it would not be fair and proper that the originals 
be produced, notwithstanding your readiness to authenticate the copies. 
You know that in a court copies would not be received where the origi- 
nals could be produced ; and would you not be willing to produce them 
long enough to have them looked at and examined ? 

Mr. Moulton — In answer to that question I will say, I have not any 
desire now, nor have I had any desire, to withhold these originals from 
you ; and I am willing now, or within a few minutes, to produce them. 
You may send any member of your committee to see them if you doubt 
the authenticity. 

Mr. Winslow — I do not put it on the ground of doubt, but on the 
ground of business-like regularity. 

Mr. Moulton — Pardon me; I call your attention to the language of 
this statement which I have just made; and if the authenticity, by 
either party, of these documents is doubted, I hold myself ready to 
prove their authenticity. 



THE BROOKLYN SCAKDAL. 249 

Mr. Winslow — I do not feel called upon to put it on any ground of 
doubt, because there is no reason of doing it. 

Mr. Moulton — I do not think there is, sir. 

Mr. Winslow — It is merely a matter of customary business regu- 
larity. 

Mr. Moulton— I have in good faith come here, and have presented 
to you copies of the original documents ; if you doubt — 

Mr. Winslow — Do not put it in that way, please. 

Mr. Moulton— Pardon me; I referred to my communication ; if there 
is any doubt I shall remove the doubt. 

Mr. Winslow— You were about to say something of your willingness 
to send for them while you are here, and let us see them. 

Mr. Moulton— 0, well, you won't doubt them, I think. 

Q. If we should conclude that we wanted to see them at some other 
time, would you send for them ? A. Certainly, sir. 

Q. Within the present week? A. Certainly. I am willing to go 
with all the members of your present committee, or any one that you 
may select, some time during the present week, and show to any accred- 
ited member of this committee the original documents. Is that a fair 
answer to that question ? 

Mr. Winslow — That is satisfactory. 

Mr. Hall — Perhaps that question could be determined, so far as the 
committee are concerned, at the present moment, 

Mr. Moulton — I want the action in reference to these documents de- 
termined according to the expression of the document which I have 
submitted to you. 

Mr. Winslow — Well, if for any reason we want to see the originals, I 
understand you to say there is no objection? [Mr. Moulton assented.] 

Mr. White — I want to inquire whether your objection to giving a 
fuller statement is based upon the wording of the letters which seem on 
one construction to limit it to bringing with you the originals of the let- 
ters or papers referred to in Mr. Tilton's statement before the com- 
mittee, as it seems to me that the letter is susceptible of another expla- 
nation, and one which certainly was the understanding of the committee ? 

Mr. Moulton — Yes, sir, I will answer your question; I wish to say, 
and do say, that I have acquiesced just now in the request of your 
chairman, and that all reasons for the non-production of facts, or the 
non-exhibition of documents, is given in the communication which I 
have just read to you. 

Mr. Whtte — Well, as I understand it, the first request, antedating all 
of these, called upon you to come before us and give your testimony in 
regard to any charges which might affect the character and the Chris- 
tian standing of Mr. Beecher, in the letter referred to of Theodore Tilton 
to Dr. Bacon. 



250 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Mr. Moulton — Your original letter did not say any such thing. 

Q. Have you a copy here, that we may see what it did say ? A. I 
presented to you at the beginning of this interview the letters from 
your chairman, with reference to which I appear ; and as it is a fact 
that I have fully answered these thrice-repeated requests, I submit that 
this answer is sufficient. 

Mr. Sage — Allow me to ask you one question, Mr. Moulton ? 

Mr. Moulton — Certainly. 

Mr. Sage — One letter of mine, which is before me, contains a request 
to bring with you the originals of all letters and papers referred to in 
Mr. Tilton's statement to the committee. 

Mr. Winslow — He has covered that by his agreement. 

Mr. Moulton — If you doubt or question, or if you require them, you 
shall have them. 

Mr. Sage— "When shall we ? 

Mr. Moulton — My dear sir, you can go with me all together to my 
house if you want to. 

Mr. Sage — The answer' is unequivocal that we can have possession ? 

Mr. Moulton — Not that you can have possession, but that you can 
see them. 

Q. Well, do you mean possession long enough to examine them ? 
A. Yes. sir, in accordance with my statement. 

Mr. White — The letters that are referred to, which are produced by 
you here, three in number, each of them, refer to a request before 
made, to appear and give your testimony. I desire simply, as one of 
the committee, to state that it is my understanding of those requests 
that they cover the same thing that was embodied in the statement, in 
the request of early in July, that you appear and give your testimony 
in regard to the matters involved in the Tilton letter to Mr. Bacon; 
and as they refer to that again, I claim it as my understanding, as one 
of the committee, that this request is not limited to the simple produc- 
tion of papers ; but it does include in it the request to give your testi- 
mony in regard to all the matters. That is what I have been trying to 
make appear here. 

Mr. Moulton — I repeat again that I have answered fully, in my 
interview with you to-day, the request of the chairman of your com- 
mittee. 

In answer to a question put by Mr. Tracy, Mr. Moulton replied : I 
have stated explicitly, in my communication to this committee, the 
grounds upon which I deny to this committee the statement of facts 
and the exhibition of documents that have come into my possession in 
confidence. 

General Tracy — Then you do not mean to put that refusal upon the 
form of the committee's invitation to you ? A. No, sir. 



THE BKOOKLYX SCANDAL. 251 

On motion of Mr. Cleveland, it was voted that Mr. Winslow 
be authorized to go with Mr. Moulton, and examine and verify 
the documents. After some informal conversation in regard to 
the publication of the proceedings of the present session, Mr. 
Moulton retired. The committee remained in consultation 
until seven o'clock, and then adjourned to meet again on the 
evening of Tuesday, the 11th inst., at eight o'clock. 

XXII. 

ME. BEECHER'S DEFEXCE. 

Mr. Moulton having declined to testify before the com- 
mittee, or to submit to that body the statement he had prepared, 
there was no reason why Mr. Beecher should further delay his 
defence, which was accordingly submitted on the 13t*h of 
August. On this day the Investigating Committee met at eight 
o'clock in the morning in Mr. Beecher's library. The commit- 
tee having been called to order by the chairman, Mr. Beecher 
read the following statement : 

Gentlemen of the Committee : — In the statement addressed to the 
public on the 22d of July last I gave an explicit, comprehensive, and 
solemn denial to the charges made by Theodore Tilton against me. 
That denial I now repeat and reaffirm. I also stated in that communi- 
cation that I should appear before your committee with a more detailed 
statement and explanation of the facts in the case. For this the time 
has now come. Four years ago Theodore Tilton fell from one of the 
proudest editorial chairs in America, where he represented the cause 
of religion, humanity and patriotism, and in a few months thereafter 
became the associate and representative of Victoria "Woodhull and the 
priest of her strange cause. By his follies he was bankrupt in reputa- 
tion, in occupation, and in resources. The interior history, of which I 
am now to give a brief outline, is the history of his attempts to so em- 
ploy me as to reinstate him in business, restore his reputation, and 
place him again upon the eminence from which he had fallen. It is a 
sad history, to the full meaning of which I have but recently awakened. 
Fmtangled in a wilderness of complications, I followed until lately a 
false theory and a delusive hope, believing that the friend who had 
assured me of his determination and ability to control the passionate 
vagaries of Mr. Tilton, to restore his household, to rebuild his fortunes 



252 



THE TRUE HISTORY OF 




LADIES BRINGING BOUQUETS TO MR. BEECHER. 

and to vindicate me, would be equal to that promise. His self-confessed 
failure has made clear to me what for a long time I did not suspect — 
the real motive of Mr. Tilton. My narrative does not represent a single 
standpoint, only as regards my opinion of Theodore Tilton. It begins 
at my cordial intimacy with him in his earlier career, shows my lamen- 
tation and sorrowful but hopeful affection for him during the period of 
his initial wanderings from truth and virtue ; it describes my repentance 
over evils befalling him of which I was made to believe myself the 
cause, my persevering and finally despairing efforts to save him and his 
family by any sacrifice of myself not absolutely dishonorable, and my 
growing conviction that his perpetual follies and blunders rendered his 
recovery impossible. I can now see that he is and has been from the 
beginning of this difficulty a selfish and reckless schemer, pursuing a 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 253 

plan of mingled greed and hatred, and weaving about me a network of 
suspicions, misunderstandings, plots and lies, to which my own innocent 
words and acts — nay, even my thoughts of kindness towards him — have 
been made to contribute. These successive views of him must be kept 
in view to explain my course through the last four years. 

That I was blind so long as to the real nature of the intrigue going 
on around me was due partly to my own overwhelming public engage- 
ments, partly to my complete surrender of this affair and all papers and 
questions connected with it into the hands of Mr. Moulton, who was 
intensely confident that he could manage it successfully. I suffered 
much, but I inquired little. Mr. Moulton was chary to me of Mr. 
Tilton's confidences to him, reporting to me occasionally in a general 
way Mr. Tilton's words and outbreaks of passion only as elements of 
trouble which he was able to control and as additional proof of the wis- 
dom of leaving it to him. His comment of the situation seemed to me 
at the time complete, immersed as I was in incessant cares and duties, 
and only too glad to be relieved from considering the details of and 
wretched complications, the origin and the fact of which remained, in 
spite of all friendly intervention, a perpetual burden to my soul. 1 
would not read in the papers about it, I would not talk about it ; I made 
Moulton for a long period my confidant and my only channel of infor- 
mation. 

From time to time suspicions were aroused in me by indications that 
Mr. Tilton was acting the part of an enemy ; but the suspicions were 
repeatedly allayed by his own behavior towards me in other moods and 
by the assurances of Mr. Moulton, who ascribed the circumstances to 
misunderstanding or to malice on the part of others. It is plain to me 
now that it was not until Mr. Tilton had fallen into disgrace and lost his 
salary that he thought it necessary to assail me with charges which he 
pretended to have had in mind for six months. The domestic offence 
which he alleged was very quickly and easily put aside, but yet in such 
a way as to keep my feelings stirred up, in order that I might, through 
my friends, be used to extract from Mr. Bowen $7000, the amount of a 
claim in dispute between them. The check for that sum in hand, Mr. 
Tilton signed an agreement of peace and concord — not made by me, but 
accepted by me as sincere. The Golden Age had been started. He 
had the capital to carry it on for a while. He was sure that he was to 
lead a great social revolution. With returning prosperity he had appar- 
ently no griefs which could not be covered by his signature to the 
articles of peace. Yet the changes in that covenant made by him before 
signing it, and represented to me as necessary, merely to relieve him 
from the imputation of having originated and circulated certain old and 
shameless slanders about me, were really made, as now appears, to leave 
him free for future operations upon me and against me. 



254 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

So long as he was or thought he was on the road to a new success his 
conduct towards me was as friendly as he knew how to make it. His 
assumption of superiority and magnanimity and his patronizing manner 
were trifles at which I could afford to smile and which I bore with the 
greater humility, since I still retained the profound impression made 
upon me, as explained in the following narrative, that I had been a 
cause of overwhelming disaster to him, and that his complete restora- 
tion to public standing and household happiness was a reparation justly 
required of me, and the only one which I could make. 

But, with a peculiar genius for blunders, he fell almost at every step 
into new complications and difficulties, and in every such instance it was 
his policy to bring coercion to bear upon my honor, my conscience, and 
my affections for the purpose of procuring his extrication at my ex- 
pense. Theodore Tilton knew me well. He has said again and again 
to his friends that if they wished to gain influence over me they must 
work upon the sympathetic side of my nature. To this he has addressed 
himself steadily for four years, using as a lever without scruple my at- 
tachment to my friends, to my family, to his own household, and even 
my old affection for himself. Not blind to his faults, but resolved to 
look on him as favorably and hopefully as possible, and ignorant of his 
deeper malice, I labored earnestly, even desperately, for his salvation. 
For four years I have been trying to feed the insatiable egotism to make 
the man as great as he conceived himself to be. To restore to popu- 
larity and public confidence one who in the midst of my efforts in his 
behalf patronized disreputable people and doctrines, refused when I 
sought him to separate himself from them, and ascribed to my agency 
the increasing ruin which he was persistently bringing upon himself, 
and which I was doing my utmost to avert. 

It was hard to do anything for such a man. I might as well have 
tried to fill a sieve with water. In the earlier stages of the history he 
actually incited and created difficulties apparently for no other purpose 
than to drive me to fresh exertions. I refused to indorse his wi'd views 
and associates. The best I could do was to speak well of him, mention 
those good qualities and abilities which I still believe him to possess in 
his higher moods, and keeping silence concerning the evil things which 
I was assured and believed had been greatly exaggerated by public re- 
port. I could not think him so bad as my friends did. I trusted to the 
germs of good which I thought still lived in him, to Mr. Moulton's ap- 
parent power over him, and to the power of my persistent self-sacrifice. 
Mr. Moulton came to me at first as the schoolmate and friend of Mr. 
Tilton, determined to reinstate him, I always suspected, without regard 
to my interests, but on further acquaintance with me, undertook and 
promised to serve his friend without doing wrong to me. He said he 
saw clearly how this was to be done, so as to restore peace and harmony 



THE BKOOKLYN SCANDAL. 255 

to Mr. Tilton's home and bring a happy end to all misunderstandings. 
Many things which he counselled I absolutely refused, but I never 
doubted his professed friendship for me, after friendship had grown up 
between us, and whatever he wished me to do I did, unless it seemed to 
me wrong. My confidence in him was the only element that seemed 
secure in that confusion of tormenting perplexities. 

To him I wrote freely in this troublous time, when I felt that secret 
machinations were going on around me and echoes of the vilest slander 
concerning me were heard of in unexpected quarters ; when some of my 
near relatives were set against me and the tattle of a crowd of malicious 
women, hostile to me on other grounds, was borne to my ears ; when I 
had lost the last remnant of faith in Theodore or hope for him ; when I 
heard with unspeakable remorse that everything that I had done to stay 
his destruction had made matters worse and worse ; that my attempts 
to keep him from a public trial (involving such a flood of scandal as has 
now been let loose) had been used by him to bring up new troubles ; 
that his unhappy wife was, under his dictation, signing papers and re- 
cantations and I knew not what ; that, in short, everything was break- 
ing up, and the destruction from which I had sought to save the family 
was likely to be emptied on other families, the church, the community, 
with infinite horrors of woe for me, that my own innocence was buried 
under heaps and heaps of rubbish, and nobody but my professed friend 
— if even he — could save us. To his assurances that he could still do 
so I gave at least so much faith as to maintain, under these terrible 
trials, the silence which he enjoined. 

Not until Mr. Tilton, having attempted through Frank Carpenter to 
raise money from my friends, openly assailed me in his letter to Dr. 
Bacon, did I break that silence (save by simple denial of the slanderous 
rumors against me a year before), when, on the appearance of the first 
open attack from Mr. Tilton, I immediately, without consulting Mr. 
Moulton, called for a thorough investigation with a committee of my 
church. I am not responsible for the delay, the publicity, or the details 
of that investigation. All the harm which I have so long dreaded and 
so earnestly striven to avoid has come to pass. I could not further pre- 
vent it without a full surrender of honor ahd truth. The time has 
arrived when I can freely speak in vindication of myself. I labor under 
great disadvantages in making a statement. My memory of states of 
the mind is clear and tenacious, better than my memory of dates and 
details. During four troubled years, in all of which I have been singu- 
larly burdened with public labor, having established and conducted the 
Christian Union, delivered courses of lectures, preaching before the 
theological seminary of Yale College, written the "Life of Christ," 
delivered each winter lyceum lectures in all the north and west — all 
these duties, with the care of the great church and its outlying schools 



256 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

and chapels, and the miscellaneous business which falls upon a clergy- 
man more than upon any other public man, I have kept in regard. 

And now, with the necessity of explaining actions and letters result- 
ing from complex influences apparent at the time, I find myself in a 
position where I know my innocence without being able to prove it with 
detailed explanations. I am one upon whom trouble works inwardly, 
making me outwardly silent, but reverberating in the chambers of my 
soul ; and when at length I do speak it is a pent-up flood, and pours 
without measure or moderation. I inherit a tendency to sadness — the 
remains in me of positive hypochondria in my father and grandfather — 
and in certain moods of reaction the world becomes black and I see very 
despairingly. If I were in such moods to speak as I feel I should give 
false colors and exaggerative proportions of everything. This manifes- 
tation is in such contrast to the hopefulness and courage which I 
experience in ordinary times that none but those intimate with me 
would suspect one, so full of overflowing spirit and eager gladsomeness, 
to have within him a care of gloom and despondency. Some of my 
letters to Mr. Moulton reflect this morbid feeling. He understood it, 
and at times earnestly reproved me for indulging it. 

With this preliminary review I proceed with my narrative. 

Mr. Tilton was first known to me as a reporter of my sermons. He 
was then a youth, just from school, and working on the New York 
Observer. From this paper he passed to the Independent, and became 
a great favorite of Mr. Bowen. When about 1801 Drs. Bacon, Storrs, 
and Thompson resigned their places I became editor of the Independent, 
to which I had been from its start a contributor. One of the induce- 
ments held out to me was that Mr. Tilton should be my assistant, and 
relieve me wholly from routine office work. ]n this relation 1 became 
very much attached to him. We used to stroll to galleries and print- 
shops, and dine often together. His mind was opening freshly, and with 
enthusiasm upon all questions. I used to pour out my ideas of civil 
affairs, public policy, religion, and philanthropy. Of this he often spoke 
with grateful appreciation, and mourned at a later day over its cessa- 
tion. August was my vacation month, but my family repaired to my 
farm in June and July and remained there during September and Octo- 
ber. My labors confining me to the city I took my meals in the families 
of friends, and from year to year I became so familiar with their chil- 
dren and homes that I went in and out daily almost as in my own house. 

Mr. Tilton often alluded to this habit, and urged me to do the same 
by his house. He used often to speak in extravagant terms of his wife's 
esteem and affection for me. After I began to visit his house, he sought 
to make it attractive. He urged me to bring my papers down there and 
use his study to do my writing in, as it was not pleasant to write at the 
office of the Independent. When I went to England in 1863, Mr. Tilton 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 257 

took temporary charge of the Independent. On my return I paved the 
way for him to take sole charge of it, my name remaining for a year, and 
then he becoming the responsible editor. Friendly relations continued 
until 1866, when the violent assaults made upon me by Tilton in the 
Independent, on account of my Cleveland letter, and the temporary dis- 
continuation of the publication of my sermons in .that paper broke off 
my connection with it. Although Mr. Tilton and I remained personally 
on good terms, yet there was a coolness between us in all matters of 
politics. Our social relations were very kindly, and as late as 186S-9, at 
his request, I sat to Page some fifty times for a portrait. 

It was here that I first met and talked with Moulton, whose wife was 
a member of Plymouth Church, though he was not a member, nor even 
a regular attendant. During this whole period I never received from 
Mr. Tilton, or any member of his family, the slightest hint that there 
was any dissatisfaction with my familiar relations to his household. As 
late, I think, as the winter of 1869, when going upon an extended lec- 
turing tour, he said: "I wish you would look in after and see that Libby 
is not lonesome or docs not want anything," or words to that effect. 
Never, by sign or word, did Mr. Tilton complain of my visits in his 
family until after he began to fear that the Independent would be taken 
from him ; nor did he break out into violence until on the eve of dispos- 
session from both the papers — the Independent and the Brooklyn Union, 
owned by Mr. Bowen. During these years of intimacy in Mr. Tilton's 
family, I was treated as a father or elder brother. Children were born; 
children died. They learned to love me, and to frolic with me as if I 
was one of themselves. I loved them, and I had for Mrs. Tilton a true 
and honest regard. She seemed to me an affectionate mother, a devoted 
wife; looking up to her husband as one far above the common race of 
men, and turning to- me with artless familiarity and with entire confix 
dence. Childish in appearance, she was childlike in nature, and I would 
as soon have misconceived the confidence of her little girls as the un- 
studied affection she showed me. 

Delicate in health, with a self-cheerful air, she was boundless in her 
sympathy for those in trouble, and labored beyond her strength for the 
poor. She had the charge at one time of the married women's class at 
the Bethel Mission School, and they perfectly worshipped her there. I 
gave Mrs. Tilton copies of my books when published. I sometimes sent 
down from the farm flowers to be distributed among a dozen or more 
families, and she occasionally shared. The only present of value I ever 
gave her was on my return from Europe in 1863, when I distributed 
souvenirs of my journey to some fifty or more persons, and to her I 
gave a simple brooch of little intrinsic value. So far from supposing 
that my presence and influence were alienating Mrs. Tilton from her 
family relations, I thought, on the contrary, that it was giving her 
17 



258 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

strength, and encouraging her to hold fast upon a man evidently sliding 
into dangerous associations, and liable to be ruined by unexampled self- 
conceit. I regarded Mr. Tilton as in a very critical period of his life, 
and used to think it fortunate that he had good home influences about 
him. 

During the later years of our friendship, Mrs. Tilton spoke very sor- 
rowfully to me about the tendency of her husband to great laxity of 
doctrine in religion and morals. She gave me to understand that he 
denied the divinity of Christ, the inspiration of the Scriptures, and most 
articles of orthodox faith, while his views as to the sanctity of the mar- 
riage relation were undergoing constant change in the direction of free 
love. 

In the latter part of July, 1870, Mrs. Tilton was sick, and at her re- 
quest I visited her. She seemed much depressed, but gave me no hint 
of any trouble having reference to me. I cheered her as best I could 
and prayed with her just before leaving. This was our last interview 
before trouble broke out in the family. I describe it because it was the 
last, and its character has a bearing upon a later part of my story. 
Concerning all my other visits it is sufficient to say that at no interview 
which ever took place between Mrs. Tilton and myself did anything occur 
which might not have occurred with perfect propriety bettveen a brother 
and sister, between a father and child, or between a man of honor and the 
wife of his dearest friend ; nor did anything ever happen which she or 
I sought to conceal from her husband. 

Some years before any open trouble between Mr. Tilton and myself, 
his doctrines as set forth in the leaders of the Independent aroused a 
storm of indignation among the representative Congregationalists in the 
West; and as the paper was still very largely supposed to be my organ, 
I was written to on the subject. In reply, I indignantly disclaimed all 
responsibility for the views expressed by Mr. Tilton. My brother 
Edward, then living in Illinois, was prominent in the remonstrance ad- 
dressed to Mr. Bowen concerning the course of his paper under Mr. 
Tilton's management. It was understood that Mr. Bowen agreed that, 
in consequence of proceedings arising out of this remonstrance, to 
remove Mr. Tilton or suppress his peculiar views, but instead of that, 
Theodore seemed firmer in the saddle than before, and his loose notions 
of marriage and divorce began to be shadowed editorially. This led to 
the starting of the Advance in Chicago, to supersede the Independent 
in the Northwest, and Mr. Bowen was made to feel that Mr. Tilton's 
management was seriously injuring the business, and Mr. Tilton may 
have felt that his position was being undermined by opponents of his 
views with whom he subsequently pretended to believe I was in league. 
Yague intimations of his " feeling hard " toward me I ascribed to this 
misconception. I had in reality taken no step to harm him. 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 259 

After Mr. Tilton's return from the "West in December, 1870, a young 
girl whom Mrs. Tilton had taken into the family, educated, and treated 
like an own child (her testimony, I understand, is before the committee) 
was sent to me with an urgent request that I would visit Mrs. Tilton 
at her mother's. She said that Mrs. Tilton had left her home and gone 
to her mother's in consequence of ill-treatment of her husband. She 
then gave an account of what she had seen of cruelty and abuse on the 
part of the husband that shocked me ; and yet more, when with down- 
cast look she said that Mr. Tilton had visited her chamber in the night 
and sought her consent to his wishes. I immediately visited Mrs. 
Tilton at her mother's, and received an account of her home life, and of 
the despotism of her husband, and of the management of a woman 
whom he had made housekeeper, which seemed like a nightmare dream. 
The question was whether she should go back, or separate forever from 
her husband. I asked permission to bring my wife to see them, whose 
judgment in all domestic relations I thought better than my own; and 
accordingly a second visit was made. 

The result of the interview was that my wife was extremely indignant 
toward Mr. Tilton, and declared that no consideration on earth would 
induce her to remain an hour with a man who had treated her with a 
hundredth part of such insult and cruelty. I felt as strongly as she did, 
but hesitated, as I always do, at giving advice in favor of a separation. 
It was agreed that my wife should give her final advice at another visit. 
The next day, when ready to go, she wished a final word ; but there was 
company, and the children were present, and so I wrote on a scrap of 
paper, " I incline to think that your view is right, and that a separation 
and a settlement of support will be wisest, and that in his present des- 
perate state her presence near him is far more likely to produce hatred 
than her absence." 

Mrs. Tilton did not tell me that my presence had anything to do with 
this trouble, nor did she let me know that on the July previous he had 
extorted from her a confession of excessive affection for me. 

On the evening of December 27, 1870, Mr. Bowen, on his way home, 
called at my house and handed me a letter from Mr. Tilton. It was, as 
nearly as I can remember, in the following terms : 

Henry Ward Beecher :— For reasons which you explicitly know, and 
which I forbear to state, I demand that you withdraw from the pulpit 
and quit Brooklyn as a residence. Theodore Tilton. 

I read it over twice, and turned to Bowen and said: " This man is 
crazy ; this is sheer insanity," and other like words. Mr. Bowen pro- 
fessed to be ignorant of the contents, and I handed him the letter to 
read. We at once fell into a conversation about Mr. Tilton. He gave me 
some account of the reasons why he had reduced him from the editor- 



260 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

ship of the Independent to the subordinate position of contributor, 
namely, that Mr. Tilton's religious and social views were ruining- ihe 
paper. But he said that as soon as it was known that he had so far 
broken with Tilton, there came pouring in upon him so many stories of 
Mr. Til ton's private life and habits that lie was overwhelmed, and that 
he was now considering whether he could consistently retain him on 
the Brooklyn Union, or as chief contributor of the Independent. He 
narrated the story of the affair at WinsteU, Conn., some like stories from 
the Northwest, and charges brought against Mr. Tilton in his own office. 
Without doubt he believed these allegations, and so did I. The other 
facts previously stated to me seemed a full corroboration. "We con- 
versed for some time, Mr. Bowen wishing my opinion. It was frankly 
given. I did not see how he could maintain his relations with Mr. Til- 
ton. The substance of the full conversation was that Tilton's inordi- 
nate vanity, his fatal facility in blundering (for which he had a genius), 
and ostentatious independence in his own opinions and general im- 
practicablencss would keep the Union at disagreement with the political 
party for whose service it was published; and now. added to all this. 
these revelations of these promiscuous immoralities would make his 
connection with either paper fatal to its interests. I spoke strongly and 
emphatically under the great provocation of his threatening to me and 
the revelation I had just had concerning his domestic affairs. 

Mr. Bowen derided the letter of Tilton's which he had brought to 
me, and said earnestly that if trouble came of it I might rely upon his 
friendship. I learned afterward that in the further quarrel, ending in 
Tilton's peremptory expulsion from Bowen's service, this conversation 
was repeated to Mr. Tilton. I believe that Mr. Bowen had an interview 
and received some furlher information about Tilton from my wife, to 
whom I had referred him; and although I have no doubt that Mr. Til- 
ton would have lost his place at any rate, I have also no doubt that my 
influence was decisive, and precipitated his final overthrow. "When I 
came to think it all over I felt very unhappy at the contemplation of 
Mr. Tilton's impending disaster. I had loved him much, and at one 
time he had seemed like a son to me. "My influence had come just at the 
time of his first unfolding, and had much to do with tin's early develop- 
ment. I had aided him externally to bring him before the public. "We 
had been together in the great controversies of the day until after the 
war, and our social relations had been intimate. 

It is true that his nature always exaggerated his own excellencies. 
"When he was but a boy he looked up to me with affectionate admira- 
tion. After some years he felt himself my equal, and was very com- 
panionable ; and when he had outgrown me, and reached the position 
of the first man of the age. he still was kind and patronizing. I had 
always smiled at these weaknesses of vanity, and had believed i)\at a 



THE BROOKLYX SCANDAL. 261 

larger experience, with some knocks among strong men, and by sorrows 
that temper the soul, he would yet fulfil a useful and brilliant career. 
But now all looked dark ; he was to be cast forth from his eminent posi- 
tion, and his affairs at home did not promise that sympathy and strength 
which make one's house, as mine has been, in times of adversity, a 
refuge from the storm and a tower of defence. 

Besides a generous suffering I should have had a selfish reason for 
such, if I had dreamt that I was about to become the instrument by 
which Mr. Tilton meant to fight his way back to the prosperity which 
he had forfeited. It now appears that on the 29th of December, 1870, 
Mr. Tilton having learned that I had replied to his threatening letter 
by expressing such an opinion of him as to set Mr. Bowen finally 
against him, and bring him face to face with immediate ruin, extorted 
from his wife, then suffering under a severe illness, a document in- 
criminating me, and prepared an elaborate attack upon me. 

On Tuesday evening, December 30, 1S70, about seven o'clock, Francis 
D. Moulton called at my house, and with intense earnestness said, 
'•I wish you to go with me to see Mr. Tilton. 1 ' I replied that I could 
not then, as I was just going to m^' prayer-meeting. With the most 
positive manner he said, "You must go; somebody else will take care 
of the meeting." I went with him, not knowing what trouble had 
agitated him, but vaguely thinking that I might now learn the solution 
of the recent threatening letter. On the way I asked what was the 
reason of this visit, to which he replied that Mr. Tilton would inform 
me. or words to that effect. On entering his house Mr. Moulton locked 
the door, saying something about not being interrupted. He requested 
me to go into the front chamber over the parlor. I was under the im- 
pression that Mr. Tilton was going to pour out upon me his anger for 
colleaguing with Bowen and for the advice of separation given to his 
wife. I wished Mr. Moulton to be with me as a witness, but he insisted 
that I should go by myself. 

Mr. Tilton received me coldly, but calmly. After a word or two. 
standing in front of me with a memorandum in his hand, he began an 
oration. He charged me in substance with acting for a long time in an 
unfriendly spirit ; that I had sought his downfall ; had spread injurious 
rumors about him ; was using my place and influence to undermine 
him ; had advised Mr. Bowen to dismiss him, and much more that I 
cannot remember. He then declared that I had injured him in his 
family relations ; had joined with his mother-in-law in producing discord 
in his house, had advised a separation, had alienated his wife's affections 
from him. had led her to love me more than any living being, had cor- 
rupted her moral nature, and taught her to be insincere, lying and 
hypocritical, and ended by charging that I had made wicked proposals 
to her. Until he reached this I had listened with some contempt under 



262 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

the impression that he was attempting to bully me. But with the last 
charge he produced a paper purporting to be a certified statement of a 
previous confession made to him by his wife of her love for me, and that 
I had made proposals to her of an impure nature. He said that this 
confession had been made to him in July, six months previous ; that his 
sense of honor and affection would not permit any such document to 
remain in existence ; that he had burned the original and should now 
destroy the only copy; and he then tore the paper into small pieces. 
If I had been shocked at such a statement, I was absolutely thunder- 
struck when he closed the interview by requesting me to repair at once 
to his house, where he said Elizabeth was waiting for me, and learn 
from her lips the truth of his stories in so far as they concerned her. 
This fell like a thunderbolt on me. Could it be possible that his wife, 
whom I had regarded as the type of moral goodness, should have made 
such false and atrocious statements ? And yet if she had not, how 
would he dare to send me to her for confirmation of his charges? 

I went forth like a sleep-walker, while clouds were flying in the sky. 
There had been a snow storm, which was breaking away. The winds 
were out and whistling through the leafless trees, but all this was peace 
compared to my mood within. I believe that Moult on went with me to 
the door of Tilton's house. The housekeeper (the same woman of whom 
Mrs. Til ton had complained) seemed to have been instructed by him, for 
she evidently expected me, and showed me at once up to Mrs. Tilton's 
room. Mrs. Tilton lay upon her bed, white as marble, with closed eyes, 
as in a trance, and with her hands upon her bosom, palm to palm, like 
one in prayer. As 1 look back upon it, the picture is like some forms 
carved in marble that I had seen upon monuments in Europe. 

She made no motion, and gave no sign of recognition of my presence. 
I sat down near her and said, " Elizabeth, Theodore has been making 
very serious charges against me, and sends me to you for confirmation." 
She made no reply or sign. Yet it was plain that she was conscious 
and listening. I repeated some of his statements — that I had brought 
discord to the family, had alienated her from him, had sought to break 
up the family, had usurped his influence, and then, as well as I could, I 
added that he said that I had made improper suggestions to her, and 
that she had admitted this fact to him last July. 

I said, "Elizabeth, have you made such statements to him?" She 
made no answer. I repeated the question. Tears ran down her cheeks, 
and she very slightly bowed her head in acquiescence. I said, u You 
cannot mean that you have stated all he has charged." She opened 
her eyes and began in a slow and feeble way to explain how sick 
she had been, how wearied out with importunity; that he had con. 
fessed his own alien loves, and said that he could not bear to think 
that she was better than he; that she might win him to reformation 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 263 

if she would confess that she had loved me more than him, and that 
they would repent and go on with future concord. I cannot give her 
language, but only the tenor of her representations. I received them 
impatiently, I spoke to her in the strongest language of her course. I 
said to her: '"Have I ever made any improper advances to you?" 
She said : " No." Then I asked : " Why did you say so to your hus- 
band 2 " She seemed deeply distressed. " My friend " (by that designa- 
tion she almost always called me), " I am sorry, but I could not help it. 
What can I do ? " I told her she could state in writing what she had 
now told me. She beckoned for her writing materials which I handed 
her from her secretary standing near by, and she sat up in bed and 
wrote a brief counter-statement. 

In a sort of postscript, she denied explicitly that I had ever offered 
any improper solicitation to her, that being the only charge made 
against me by Mr. Tilton, or sustained by the statement about the con- 
fession which he had read to me. I dreamed of no worse charge at that 
time. That was horrible enough. The mere thought that he could 
make it and could have extorted any evidence on which to base it, was 
enough to take away my senses. Neither my consciousness of its utter 
falsehood, nor Mrs. Tilton's retraction of her part in it could remove 
the shock from my heart and head. Indeed, her admission to me that 
she had stated under any circumstances to her husband so wicked a 
falsehood was the crowning blow of all. It seemed to me as if she was 
going to die, that her mind was overthrown, and that I was in some 
dreadful way mixed up in it, and might be left by her death with this 
terrible accusation hanging over me. 

I returned, like one in a dream, to Mr. Moulton's house, where I said 
very little and soon went home. It has been said that I confessed 
guilt and expressed remorse. This is utterly false. Is it likely that, 
with Mrs. Tilton's retraction in my pocket, I should have thus stultified 
myselt ? 

On the next day, at evening, Mr. Moulton called at my house and 
came up into my bedroom. He said that Mrs. Tilton, on her husband's 
return to her after our interview, had informed him what she had done, 
and that I had her retraction. Moulton expostulated with me, said that 
the retraction under the circumstances would not mend matters, but 
only awaken fresh discord between husband and wife and do great 
injury to Mrs. Tilton without helping me. Mrs. Tilton, he said, had 
already recanted in writing the retraction made to me, and of course 
there might be no end to such contradictions. Meanwhile. Tilton had 
destroyed his wife's first letter, acknowledging the confession, and Mr. 
Moulton claimed that I had taken a mean advantage, and made dis- 
honorable use of Theodore's request that I should visit her, in obtaining 
from her a written contradiction to a document not in existence. He 



264 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

said that all difficulties could be settled without any such papers, and 
that 1 ought to give it up. He was under great excitement. He made 
no verbal threats, but he opened his overcoat, and with some emphatic 
remark showed a pistol, which afterward he took out and laid on the 
bureau near which he stood. I gave the paper to him, and after a few 
moments' talk he left. 

Within a day or two after this Mr. Moulton made me the third visit, 
and this time we repaired to my study in the third story of my house. 
Before speaking- of this interview, it is right that I should allude to the 
suffering through which I had gone during- the previous days — the cause 
of which was the strange change in Mrs. Tilton. Nothing- had seemed 
to me more certain during- all my acquaintance with her, than that she 
was singularly simple, truthful, and honorable. Deceit seemed abso- 
lutely foreign to her nature, and yet she had stated to her husband 
those strange and awful falsehoods, she had not when daily I called and 
prayed with her given me the slightest hint, I will not say of such accu- 
sal ions, but even that there was any serious family difficulty. She had 
suddenly, in December, called me and my wife to a consultation to a 
possible separation from her husband, .still leaving me ignorant that she 
had put into his hands such a weapon against me. I was bewildered 
with a double consciousness of a saintly woman communicating a very 
needless treachery to her friend and pastor. My distress was boundless. 
I did not for a moment feel, however, that she was blameworthy, as 
would ordinarily be thought, but supposed that she had been overborne 
by sickness and shattered in mind until she scarcely knew what site did, 
and was no longer responsible for her acts. My soul went out to her in 
pity. I blamed myself for want of prudence and foresight, for I thought 
that all this had been the result of her undue affection for me. I had a 
profound feeling that I would bear any blame, and take any punishment 
if that poor child could only emerge from this cloud and be put back 
into the happiness from which I had been, as I thought, if not the 
cause, yet the occasion of withdrawing her. If my own daughter had 
been in similar case, my grief at Tier calamity could scarcely have been 
greater. Moreover, from the anger and fury of Mr. Tilton, I appre- 
hended that this charge was made by him, and, supported by the accu- 
sation of his wife, was to be at once publicly pressed against me; and 
if it was. I had nothing but my simple word of denial to interpose against 
it. In my then morbid condition of mind, I thought that this charge, 
although entirely untrue, might result in great disaster, if not in abso- 
lute ruin. The great interests which were entirely dependent on rae, 
the church which I had built up, the book which I was writing, my 
own immediate family, my brother's name, now engaged in the minis- 
try, my sisters, the name which I had hoped might live after me and be 
in some slight degree a source of strength and encouragement to those 



THE BBOOKLYN SCANDAL. 265 

who should succeed me, and above all, the cause for which I had de- 
voted my life, seemed imperilled. It seemed to me that my life-work 
was to end abruptly and in disaster. My earnest desire to avoid a pub- 
lic accusation, and the evils which must necessarily flow from it, and 
which now have resulted from it, has been one of the leading motives 
that must explain my action during these four years with reference to 
this matter. 

It was in such a sore and distressing condition that Mr. Moulton 
found me. His manner was kind and conciliatory ; he seemed, however, 
to be convinced that I had been seeking Tilton's downfall, that I had 
leagued with Mr. Bowen against him, and that I had by my advice 
come near destroying his family. I did not need any argument or per- 
suasion to induce me to do and say anything which would remedy the 
injury of which I then believed I had certainly been the occasion if not 
the active cause. But Mr. Moulton urged that having wronged so — the 
wrong meant his means of support suddenly taken away, his reputation 
gone, his family destroyed, and that I had done it. He assured me of 
his own knowledge that the stories which I had heard of Mr. Tilton's 
impurities of life, and which I had believed and repeated to Mr. Bowen, 
were all false, and that Mr. Tilton had always been faithful to his wife. 
I was persuaded into the belief of what he said, and felt convicted of 
slander in its meanest form. He-drew the picture of Mr. Tilton wronged 
in reputation, in position, wronged in purse, shattered in his family 
where he would otherwise have found a refuge, and at the same time 
looking upon me out of his deep distress, while I, abounding in friends, 
most popular, and with ample means, he drew that picture — my pros- 
perity overflowing and abounding, and Tilton's utter degradation — i 
was most intensely excited indeed ; I felt that my mind was in danger 
of giving way ; I walked up and down the room pouring forth my heart 
in the most unrestrained grief and bitterness of self-accusation, telling 
what my ideas were of the obligation of friendship and of the sacredness 
of the household ; denying, however, an intentional wrong, seeing that 
if I had been the cause, however remotely, of that which I then beheld, 
I never could forgive myself, and heaping all the blame on my own 
head. The case, as it then appeared to my eyes, was strongly against 
me. My old fellow-worker had been dispossessed of his eminent place 
and influence, and I had counselled it. His family had well nigh been 
broken up, and I had advised it; his wife had been long sick and broken 
in health and body, and I, as I fully believed it, had been the cause of 
all this wreck, by continuing that blind heedlessness and friendship 
which had beguiled her heart and had roused her husband into a fury 
of jealousy, although not caused by any intentional act of mine. And 
should I coldly defend myself? Should I pour indignation upon this 
lady ? Should I hold her up to contempt as having thrust her affection 



266 THE TRUE HISTOEY OF 

upon me unsought ? Should I tread upon the man and his household 
in their great adversity ? I gave vent to my feelings without measure. 
I disclaimed with the greatest earnestness all intent to harm Theodore 
in his home or his business, and with inexplicable sorrow I both blamed 
and defended Mrs. Til ton in one breath. 

Mr. Moulton was apparently affected by my soliloquy, for it was that, 
rather than a conversation. He said that if Mr. Tilton could really be 
persuaded of the friendliness of my feelings towards him, he was sure 
that there would be no trouble in procuring a reconciliation. I gave 
him leave to state to Theodore my feelings. He proposed that I should 
write a letter. I declined, but said that he could report our interview. 
He then prepared to make a memorandum of the talk, and sat down at 
my table, and took down, as I supposed, a condensed report of my talk ; 
for I went on still pouring out my wounded feelings over this great 
desolation in Mr. Tilton's family. It was not a dictation of sentence 
after sentence, he a mere amanuensis, and I composing for him. Mr. 
Moulton was putting into his own shape parts of that which I was say- 
ing in my own manner, with profuse explanations. This paper of Mr. 
Moulton's was a mere memorandum of points to be used by him in 
setting forth my feelings. That it contains matter and points derived 
from me is without doubt ; but they were put into sentences by him, 
and expressed as he understood them, not as my words, but as hints of 
my figures and letters, to be used by him in conversing with Mr. Tilton. 

lie did not read the paper to me nor did I read it, nor have I ever 
seen it or heard it read that I remember, until the publication of Mr. 
Tilton's recent documents ; and now reading it, I see in it thoughts that 
point to the matter of my discourse ; but it is not my paper, nor are 
those my sentences, nor is it a correct report of what I said. It is a 
mere string of hints hastily made by an unpractised writer as helps to 
his memory in representing to Mr. Tilton how I felt toward his family. 
If more than this be claimed — if it be set forth as in any proper sense 
my letter, I then disown it and denounce it. Some of its sentences, 
and particularly that in which I am made to say that I had obtained 
Mrs. Tilton's forgiveness, I never could have said even in substance. I 
had not obtained nor asked any forgiveness from her. and nobody pre- 
tended that I had done so. Neither could I ever have said that I hum- 
bled myself before Tilton as before God — except in the sense that both 
to God and to the man I thought I had deeply injured, I humbled my- 
self, as I certainly did. But it is useless to analyze a paper prepared as 
this was. The remainder of my plain statement concerning it will be 
its best comment. This document was written on three separate half 
sheets of large letter paper. After it was finished Mr. Moulton asked 
me if I would sign it. I said no ; it was not my letter. He replied that 
it would have more weight if I would in some way indicate that he was 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 267 

authorized to explain my sentiments. I took my pen, and at some dis- 
tance below the writing and upon the lower margin I indicated that I 
had committed the document in trust to Mr. Moulton, and I signed the 
line thus written by me. 

A few words more as to its further fate. Mr. Moulton, of his own 
accord, said that after using it he would, in two or three days, bring the 
memorandum back to me, and he cautioned me about disclosing in any 
way that there was a difficulty between Mr. Tilton and me, as it would 
be injurious to Tilton to have it known that I had quarrelled with him, 
as well as to me to have rumors set afloat. I did not trouble myself 
about it until more than a year afterward, when Tilton began to write 
up his case (of which hereafter) and was looking up documents. I won- 
dered what was in the old memorandum, and desired to see it for greater 
certainty; so one day I suddenly asked Moulton for that memorandum, 
and said "You promised to return it to me." He seemed confused for a 
moment, said, " Did I ? " " Certainly." I answered. He replied that the 
paper had been destroyed. On my putting the question again, " That 
paper was burned up long ago ; " and during the next two years, in 
various conversations, of his own accocd he spoke of it as destroyed. 
I had never asked for, nor authorized, the destruction of this paper. 
But I was not allowed to know that the document was in existence until 
a distinguished editor in New York, within a few' weeks past, assured 
me that Mr. Moulton had shown him the original, and that he had ex- 
amined my signature to be sure of its genuineness. I know that there 
was a copy of it since this statement was in preparation. 

"While I rejected this memorandum as my work, or an accurate con- 
densation of my statement, it does, undoubtedly, correctly represent 
that I was in profound sorrow, and that I blamed myself with great 
severity for the disasters of the Tilton family. I had not then the light 
that I now have. There was much then that weighed heavily upon my 
heart and conscience, which now weighs only on my heart. I have not 
the light which analyzes and disseminates things. By one blow there 
opened before me a revelation full of anguish ; an agonized family, 
whose inmates had been my friends, greatly beloved ; the husband 
ruined in worldly prospects, the household crumbling to pieces, the 
woman, by long sickness and suffering, either corrupted to deceit, as her 
husband alleged, or so broken in mind as to be irresponsible ; and either 
way it was her enthusiasm for her pastor, as I was made to believe, that 
was the germ and beginning of the trouble. It was for me to have fore- 
stalled and prevented that mischief. My age and experience in the 
world should have put me more on my guard. I could not at that time 
tell what was true and what not true of all the considerations urged 
upon me by Mr. Tilton and Moulton. There was a grief before me in 
which lay those who had been warm friends, and they alleged that I 



2G8 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

had helped to plunge them therein. That seemed enough to fill my 
soul with sorrow and anguish. No mother who has lost a child but will 
understand the wild self-accusation that grief produced, against all 
reason, blaming herself for what things she did do and for what she 
neglected to do, and charging upon herself her neglect or heedlessness, 
the death of the child, while ordinarily every one knows that she had 
worn herself out with her assiduities. 

Soon after this I met Mr. Tilton at Moulton's house. Either Moulton 
was sick or was very late in rising, for he was in bed. The subject of 
my feelings and conduct toward Tilton was introduced. I made a state- 
ment of the motives under which I had acted in counselling Bowen, of 
my feelings in regard to Mr. Tilton's family, disclaiming with horror the 
thought of wrong, and expressing desire to do whatever lay in human 
power to remedy any evil I had occasioned, and to reunite his family. 
Tilton was silent and sullen. ITe played the part of an injured man, 
but Moulton said to Mr. Tilton, with intense emphasis, "That is all that 
a gentleman can say. and you ought to accept it; as our honorable 
basis of reconciliation." This he repeated two or three times, and Til- 
ton's countenance cheered up under Moulton's strong talk. We shook 
hands and parted in a friendly way. Not very long afterward Tilton 
asked me to his house, and said that he should be glad to have good old 
times renewed. I do not remember whether I ever took a meal after 
this under his roof, but I certainly was invited by him to renew my 
visits as formerly. I never resumed my intimacy with the family; but 
once or twice I went there soon after my reconciliation with Mr. Tilton 
and at his request, I particularly remember a scene which took place 
at his house when he talked about his wife and me in a very gracious 
mood. He began by mourning his sorrows ; he was very desolate ; the 
future seemed quite dark. After impressing us with his great patience, 
he grew generous, praised me to his wife, saying that I had taken upon 
myself all blame of past troubles and had honorably exculpated her, and 
telling me that his wife likewise had behaved very magnanimously, had 
blamed herself and declared that I was blameless, and he closed his 
homily with increasing hope and cheer, saying that deep as was his 
misery he did not know but that it would work out in the future a more 
cheerful home than he had before. I restrained my smiles at the ab- 
surdity of the thing, well content to have it evaporate so, and even 
thinking he was generous in his way. This seemed to me the end of 
trouble. With a sensitive and honorable man, who had no ulterior de- 
signs to accomplish, it would have been the burial of the difficulty. I 
supposed Mr. Tilton had given up the idea of intentional wrong on my 
part and forgiven my unintentional wrong. I plainly understand now, 
what I did not then suspect, that my trouble of mind was to be kept 
alive and nourished so that I might be used to act on my friend in se- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 269 

curing from Mr. Bowen the money which Mr. Tilton claimed to be due 
as compensation for his expulsion from the two newspapers. 

Mr. Moulton and Mr. Tilton both strove to obliterate from mv mind 
all belief in the rumors that had been circulated about Mr. Tilton. 
There was much going on in silencing, explaining, arranging, etc., that 
I did not understand as well then as now. But of one thing I was con- 
vinced, viz.: that Mr. Tilton hud the highest sense of marital purity, and 
that he had never strayed from the path of virtue ; which preservation 
he owed, as he told me in a narrative of his life, to a very solemn scene 
with his father, who, on the eve of his leaving home, pointed out to him 
the nature of amorous temptations and snares, and the evils to be 
dreaded from unlawful practices. He declared that he had always been 
kept spotless by the memory of that scene. I was glad to believe it 
true, and felt how hard it was that he should be made to suffer by evil 
and slanderous foes. I could not explain some testimony which had 
been laid before me ; but, I said, there is undoubtedly some misunder- 
standing, and if I knew the whole I should find Theodore, though with 
obvious faults, at heart sound and good. These views I often expressed 
to intimate friends in spite of their manifest incredulity, and what in 
the light of the facts I must now call their well-deserved ridicule. Mr. 
Moulton lost no occasion of presenting to me the kindest view of Mr. 
Tilton's character and conduct. On the other hand, he complained that 
Mrs. Tilton did not trust her husband or him. and did not assist him in 
his effort to help Theodore. I knew that she distrusted Moulton, and 
felt bitterly hurt by the treatment of her husband. I was urged to use 
my influence with her to inspire confidence in Moulton. and to lead her 
to take a kinder view of Theodore. Accordingly, at the instance of Mr. 
Moulton. three letters were written on the same day— February 7, 1671 — 
on one common purpose, to be shown to Mrs. Tilton and to reconcile her 
to her husband ; and my letter to her of that date was designed to effect 
the further or collateral purpose of giving her confidence in Mr. Moul- 
ton. This will be obvious from the reading of the letters. 

The following is the full text of my letters of that date from a copy 
verified by one of your committee, for I have not to this hour been per- 
mitted to see the originals either of them or of any other papers which 
I had deposited with Moulton for safe-keeping : 

BEECHER TO MRS. TILTOX. 

Brooklyn. February 7, 1871. 
My Dear Mrs. Tiltox : — When I saw you last I did not expect ever 
to see you again, or to be alive many days. God was kinder to me than 
were my own thoughts. The friend whom God sent to me — Mr. Moul- 
ton — has proved above all friends that ever I had able and willing to 
help me in this terrible emergency of my life. His hand it was that tied 
up the storm that was ready to burst upon our heads. 



270 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

I am not the less disposed to trust him from finding that he has 
your welfare most deeply and tenderly at heart. You have no friend 
(Theodore excepted) who has it in his power to serve you so vitally, 
and who will do it with so much delicacy and honor. I beseech of you, 
if my wishes have yet any influence, let my deliberate judgment in this 
matter weigh with you. It does my sore heart good to see in Mr. 
Moulton an unfeigned respect and honor for you. Jt would kill me if he 
thought otherwise. He will be as true a friend to your honor and hap- 
piness as a brother would be to a sister's. 

In him we have a common ground. You and I may meet in him. 
The past is ended. But is there no future? No wiser, higher, holier 
future? May not this friend stand as a priest in the new sanctuary of 
reconciliation, and mediate and bless you, Theodore, and my most un- 
happy self? Do not let my earnestness fail of its end. You believe in 
my judgment. I have put myself wholly and gladly in Moulton's hands, 
and there I must meet you. 

This is sent with Theodore's consent, but he has not read it. Will 
you return it to me by his hci7ids ? 

I am very earnest in this wish, for all our sakes, as such a letter ought 
not to be subject to even a chance of miscarriage. 

Your unhappy friend, H. W. Bkecher. 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

February 7, 1871. 

My Dear Mr. Moulton : — I am glad to send you a book which you will 
relish, or which a man on a sick-bed ought to relish. I wish I had more 
like it, and that I could send you one every day, not as a repayment of 
your great kindness to me, for that can never be repaid, not even by 
love, which I give you freely. Many, many friends has God raised up to 
me ; but to no one of them has he ever given the opportunity and the 
wisdom so to serve me as you have. My trust in you is implicit. You 
have also proved yourself Theodore's friend and Elizabeth's. Does God 
look down from heaven on three unhappy creatures that more need a 
friend than these ? Is it not an intimation of God's intent of mercy to 
all that each one of these has in you a tried and proved friend ? But 
only in you are we three united. Would to God, who orders all hearts, 
that by your kind mediation Theodore, Elizabeth, and I could be made 
friends again. Theodore will have the hardest task in such a case ; but 
has he not proved himself capable of the noblest things ? 

I wonder if Elizabeth knows how generously he has carried himself 
toward me ? Of course I can never speak with her again, except with 
his permission — and I do not know that, even then, it would be best. 
My earnest longing is, to see her, in the full sympathy of her nature, at 
rest in him, and to see him once more trusting her and loving her with 
even a better than the old love. I am always sad in such thoughts. Is 
there any way out of this night ? May not a day star arise ? 
Truly yours always, and with truest love, 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

I have no recollection of seeing or hearing read the letter of Mr. Til- 
ton of the same date. In my letter to Mrs. Tilton I alluded to the fact 
that I did not expect when I saw her last to be alive many days. That 
statement stands connected with a series of symptoms which I first 
experienced in 1856. I went through the Fremont campaign, speaking 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 271 

in the open air three hours at a time three days in the week. On renew- 
ing my literary labors I felt I must have given way ; I very seriously 
thought that I was going to have apoplexy or paralysis, or something 
of the kind. On two or three occasions while preaching I should have 
fallen in the pulpit if I had not held on to the table. Very often I came 
near falling in the streets. During the last fifteen years I have gone into 
the pulpit I suppose one hundred times with a very strong impression 
that I should never come out of it alive. I have preached more ser- 
mons than any human being would believe, when 1 felt all the while 
that whatever I had got to say to my people 1 must say it then or I 
never would have another chance to use it. If 1 had consulted a physi- 
cian his first advice would have been " You must stop work." But I 
was in such a situation that I could not stop work. I read the best 
medical books on symptoms of nervous prostration, and overwork and 
paralysis, and formed my own judgment of my case. The three points 
I marked were : I must have good digestion, good sleep, and I must go 
on working. These three things were to be reconciled, and in regard to 
my diet and stimulants and medicines 1 made the most thorough and 
searching trial ; and as the result managed my body so that I could get 
the most work out of it without essentially impairing it. If I had sai'd 
a word about this to my family it would have brought such distress and 
anxiety on the part of my wife as I could not bear. I have for many 
years so steadily taxed my mind to the utmost that there have been 
periods when I could not afford to have people express even sympathy 
with me. To have my wife or friends anxious about it, and showing it 
to me, would be just the drop too much. 

In 1863 I came again into the same condition just before going to 
England, and it was one of those reasons why I was wishing to go. The 
war was at its height. I carried my country in my heart. I had the 
Independent in charge, and was working, preaching, and lecturing con- 
tinually. I knew I was likely to be prostrated again. 

In December, 1870, the sudden shock of these troubles brought on 
again these symptoms in a more violent form. I was very much de- 
pressed in mind, and all the more because it was one of those things that 
I could not say anything about ; I was silent with everybody. During 
the last four years these symptoms had been repeatedly brought on by 
my intense work, carried forward, on the underlying basis of so much 
sorrow and trouble. 

My friends will bear witness that in the pulpit I have very frequently 
alluded to my expectation of sudden death. I feel that I have more 
than once already been near a stroke that would have killed or paralyzed 
me, and I carry with me now, as I have so often carried in years before 
this trouble began, the daily thought of death as a door which might 
open for me at any moment, out of all cares and labors, most welcome 
rest. 



272 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

During the whole of the year 1871, I was kept in a state of suspense 
and doubt, not only as to the future of the family, for the reunion and 
happiness of which 1 had striven so earnestly, but as to the degree to 
which 1 might personally be subject to attack and misconstruction, and 
the trouble be brought into the church and magnified by publicity. 
The officers of the church sought to investigate in Mr. Tilton's religious 
views and moral conduct, and on the latter point I had been deceived 
into the belief that he was not in fault. As to the religious views I still 
hoped for a change for the better, as it was proposed to drop him from 
the list of members for non-attendance, and as he asserted to me his 
withdrawal, this might have been done, but his wife still attended the 
church and hoped for his restoration. I recollect having with him a 
conversation, in which he dimly intimated to me that he thought it not 
unlikely that he might go back into his old position. He seemed to be 
in a mood to regret the past. And so, when T was urged by the Ex- 
amining Committee to take some steps, I said I was not without hopes 
that by patience and kindness Tilton will come back again into his old 
church works and be one of us again. I therefore delayed a decision 
upon this point for a long time. Many of our members were anxious 
and impatient, and there were many tokens of trouble from this quarter. 
Meanwhile one wing of the Female Suffrage party had got hold of the 
story in a distorted and exaggerated form, such as had never been inti- 
mated to me by Mr. Tilton or his friends. I did not then suspect what 
I now know, that these atrociously false rumors originated with Mr. 
Tilton himself. I only saw the cAil growing, instead of diminishing, 
and perceived that while I was pledged to silence, and therefore could 
not speak in my own defence, some one was forever persevering in false- 
hood, growing continually in dimensions, and these difficulties were im- 
mensely increased by the affiliation of Mr. Tilton with the Wopdhull 
clique. 

In May, 1871, Mrs. TToodlmll advertised a forthcoming article, shadow- 
ing an account of the disturbance in Mr. Tilton's family, but without 
using names. It was delayed, ostensibly by Mr. Tilton's influence with 
Mrs. "Woodhull, until November, 1872. During this suspension of her 
publication, she became the heroine of Mr. Moulton and Mr. Tilton. 
She was made welcome to both houses, with the toleration, but not the 
cordial consent, of their wives. 1 heard the most extravagant eulogies 
upon her. She was represented as a genius, born and reared among 
rude influences, but only needed to be surrounded by refined society to 
show a noble and communing nature. I did not know much about her ; 
and, though my impressions were unfavorable, her real character was 
not then really known to the world. I met her three times. At the 
first interview she was gracious, at the second she was cold and haughty, 
but at the third she was angry and threatening, for I had peremptorily 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 273 

refused to preside at the lecture she was about to give at Steinway Hall. 
The most strenuous efforts had been made by both Mr. Tilton and Mr. 
Moulton to induce me to preside at this lecture and to identify myself 
publicly with Mrs. Woodhull. It was represented to me that I need 
not, in so doing, expressly give assent to her doctrines, especially with 
regard to the marriage relation, upon which point she was beginning to 
be more explicit in opposition to the views which I, in common with 
all Christian men, entertained ; but it was plausibly urged that I could 
preside at the lecture and introduce her upon the simple ground of ad- 
vocating free speech and liberty of debate. But as I understood that 
she was about to avow doctrines which I ubhor, I would not be induced 
by this plausible argument to give her public countenance ; and after 
continuing to urge me, up to the very day of the meeting, without any 
distinct threats, but with the obvious intimation that my personal 
safety would be better secured by taking this advice, Mr. Tilton him- 
self went over to New York and presided at the meeting, where Mrs. 
Woodhull gave vent, as I understand for the first time in public, to a 
full exposition of her free-love doctrines. 

The very thought I should have been asked under any circumstances. 
and upon any excuse, to preside or be present at such a meeting, was 
inexpressibly galling to me. Whatever my astonishment might have 
been, the motive of Mr. Tilton and Mr., Moulton in asking such a thing 
(as to which I had not at the time as clear a perception as I now have), 
the request was nevertheless a humiliating one. At about the same 
time I found that the circle, of which Mrs. Woodhull formed a part, 
was the centre of loathsome scandals, organized, classified, and per- 
petuated with a greedy and unclean appetite for everything that was 
foul and vile. 

The moment that any one, whether man or woman, became noted as 
a reformer, or attained any degree of eminence among the advocates of 
liberal sentiments, it seemed as if those who claimed a monopoly of 
reform selected such persons as the special victims of charges and filthy 
slanders. I was by no means the only clergyman who was made the 
butt of their private gossip, while it seemed as if no woman of any dis- 
tinction in the land was left out of their pool of scandal. All the history 
of their past lives, and even the graves of their friends, were raked over 
to furnish material and pretexts for their loathsome falsehoods. It was 
inexpressibly disgusting to me, and I would not associate with these 
people. Yet Mr. Tilton and Mr. Moulton had some strange theory 
concerning the management of this particular affair, which always made 
it in their judgment necessary for them to maintain friendly relations 
with the group of human hyenas. From this circle, and from Mr. Til- 
ton's intimate associations with it. many rumors and suspicions arose 
among my own congregation, which led them to press me with ques- 
18 



274 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

tions, and to originate investigations, especially into the affairs of Mr. 
Tiltpn, from whom alone, as they generally believed, the rumors against 
me originated. In this I was constantly and vehemently assured by 
Mr. Moulton that they were mistaken, and yet their zeal in my defence 
made them impatient of my silence, and anxious to deal in a summary 
manner with Mr. Tilton. Had I allowed them to do this, it was obvious 
that Mr. Tilton would have been greatly enraged that all his former 
unjust suspicions of me would have been confirmed, and that he would 
have had every motive which was necessary to induce him to break up 
the peace between us, and to make some such public attack upon me as 
he has finally made. 

I have no knowledge of Mr. Tilton's friendship for Victoria "Wood- 
hull, other than that which the public already has — that he manifested 
His admiration for her publicly, that he wrote her biography, and that 
he presided at her Steinway Hall lecture, I mention only because he 
aroused against himself great indignation and odium. 

The winter following (1871-72), Mr. Tilton returned from the lecture- 
field in despair. Engagements had been cancelled, invitations with- 
drawn, and he spoke of tfie prejudice and repugnance with which he 
was everywhere met as indescribable. 1 urged him to make a prompt 
repudiation of these women and their doctrines. I told him that no 
man could rise against the public confidence with such a load. Mr. 
Tilton's vanity seldom allows him to regard himself as in the wrong or 
his actions faulty. He could never be made to believe that his failure 
to rise a.gain was caused by his partnership with these women, and by 
his want of sensible work, which work should make the public feel that 
he had in him power tor good. Instead of this he preferred, or professed 
to think, that I was using my influence against him; that I was allow- 
ing him to be traduced without coming generously to the front to de- 
fend him, and that my friends were working against him, to which I 
replied, that unless the laws of mind were changed, not Almighty God 
himself could lift him into favor if these women must be lifted with 
him. Nevertheless, I sought in every way to restore peace and concord 
to the family which I was made to feel had been injured by me, and was 
dependent on my influence for recovery. 

But one thing was constant and apparent— when Theodore, by lectur- 
ing or otherwise, was prosperous, he was very genial and affectionate to 
me. Whenever he met rebuffs and was in pecuniary trouble, he scowled 
threateningly upon me as the author of his troubles, and Moulton him- 
self seemed at times to accuse me of indifference to Tilton's misfortunes. 
It was in the midst of complications like these, though it may be that 
a part of these events happened shortly afterward, that in a thoroughly 
worried and depressed mood, discouraged by the apparent helplessness 
of extricating Tilton from his difficulties, or of saving his family from 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 275 

the blight which he has since fastened upon it with even more destruc- 
tive effect upon its members than I then feared, I wrote a letter to Mr. 
Moulton, of which Mr. Tilton has given extracts even more wickedly 
garbled than his other quotations ; for he has represented two extracts 
from this letter as constituting points of two separate letters, and has 
artfully given the impression that they were written in or after June, 
1873, whereas this letter was dated February 5, 1872. He further says 
that this letter was written for the purpose of being shown to him. I 
had no idea of such a thing being done, as the letter shows plainly 
enough on its face, and did not authorize any such use of that letter, 
which was supposed by me to be written and received in the most 
sacred confidence. This letter was as follows, as " I am now informed." 
An inspection of the original would doubtless refresh my memory con- 
cerning the circumstances ; but this Mr. Moulton denies to me. 

BEECHEB TO MOULTON. 

Monday, February 5, 1872. 

My Dear Friend : — I leave town to-day, and expect to pass through 
from Philadelphia to New Haven; shall not be here until Friday. 

About three weeks ago I met T. in the cars going to B . He was 

kind. We talked much. At the end he told me to go on with my work 
without the least anxiety, in so far as his feelings and actions were the 
occasion of apprehension. 

On returning home from New Haven (where I am three days in the 
week delivering a course of lectures to the theological students), I found 
a note from E. saying that T. felt hard towards me, and was going to see 
or write me before leaving for the West. She kindly added : " Do not 
be cast down. I bear this almost always, but the God in whom we 
trust will deliver us all safely. 

"I know you do and are willing abundantly to help him, and I also 
know your embarrassments." There were added wordsof warning, butalso 
of consolation, for I believe E. is beloved of God. and that her prayers for 
me are sooner heard than mine for myself or for her. But it seems that 
a change has come to T. since I saw him in the cars. Indeed, even 
since he felt more intensely the force of feeling in society, and the 
humiliations which environ his enterprise, he has growingly felt that I 
had a power to help which I did not develop, and I believe that you 
have participated in this feeling — it is natural you should. T. is dearer 
to you than I can be. He is with you. All his trials lie open to your 
eye daily. But I see you but seldom, and my personal relations, envi- 
ronments, necessities, limitations, dangers, and perplexities you cannot 
see nor imagine. If I had not gone through this great year of trouble, 
I would not have believed that any one could pass through my expe* 
rience and be alive and sane. 

I have bpen the centre of three distinct circles, each of which required 
clear-mindfdness and peculiarly inventive, or originating power, viz. : 

1. The great church. 

2. The newspaper. 

3. The book. 

The first I could neither get out of nor slight. The sensitiveness of 



276 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

so many of my people would have made any appearance of trouble or 
any remission of force an occasion of alarm and notice, and have excited 
where it was important that rumors should die and everything be 
quieted. 

The newspaper I did roll off— doing but little except give general 
directions, and in so doing, I was continually spurred and exhorted by 
those in interest. It could not be helped. 

" The Life of Christ." long delayed, had locked up the capital of the 
firm and was likely to sink them — finished it must be. Was ever book 
born of such sorrow as that was ? The interior history of it will never 
be written. 

During all this time you, literally, were all my stay and comfort. I 
should have fallen on the way but for the courage which you inspired 
and the hope which you breathed. 

My vacation was profitable. I came back, hoping that the bitterness 
of death was passed. But T's trouble brought back the cloud, with 
even severer suffering. For, all this fall and winter, I have felt that you 
did not feel satisfied with me, and that I seemed both to you and Tilton 
as contenting myself with a cautious or sluggish policy — willing to save 
myself, but not willing to risk anything for Tilton. I have again and 
again probed my heart to see whether I was truly liable to such feeling, 
and the response is unequivocal that I am not. 

No man can see the difficulties that environ me, unless he stands 
where I do. To say that I have a church on my hands is simple 
enough : but to have the hundreds and thousands of men pressing me. 
each one with his keen suspicion, or anxiety, or zeal; to see tendencies 
which if not stopped would break out into a ruinous defence of me ; to 
stop them without seeming to do it ; to prevent any one questioning me ; 
to meet and allay prejudices against T. which had their beginning years 
before this ; to keep serene, as if I was not alarmed or disturbed ; to be 
cheerful at home and among friends, when I was suffering the torments 
of the damned ; to pass sleepless nights often, and yet, to come up fresh 
and full for Sunday. All this may be talked about, but the real thing 
cannot be understood from the outside, nor its wearing and grinding on 
the nervous system. 

God knows that I have put more thought, and judgment, and earnest 
desire into my efforts to prepare a way for T. and E. than ever I did for 
myself a hundred fold. 

As to the outside public, I have never lost an opportunity to soften 
prejudices, to refute falsehoods, and to excite a kindly feeling among all 
whom I met. I am known among clergymen, public men, and gener- 
ally, the makers of public opinion, and I have used every rational en- 
deavor to restrain the evils which have been visited upon T., and with 
increasing success. 

But the roots of this prejudice are long. The catastrophe which pre- 
cipitated him from his place only disclosed feelings that had existed 
long. Neither he nor you can be aware of the feelings of classes in 
society on other grounds than late rumors. I mention this to explain 
why I know with absolute certainty that no mere statement, letter, tes- 
timony, or affirmation will reach the root of affairs and reinstate them. 
Time and work will. But chronic evil requires chronic remedies. 

If my destruction will place him all right, that shall not stand in the 
way. I am willing to step down and out. No one can offer more than 
that ; that I do oifer. Sacrifice me without hesitation if you can clearly 
see your way to his happiness and safety thereby. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 277 

I do not think that anything would be gained by it. I should be de- 
stroyed but he would not be saved. Elizabeth and the children would 
have their future clouded. 

In one point of view I could desire the sacrifice on ray part. Nothing 
can possibly be so bad as the horror of great darkness, in which I spend 
much of ray time. I look upon death as sweeter-faced than any friend 
I l*tve in the world. Life would be pleasant if I could see that rebuilt 
which is shattered; but to live on the sharp and ragged edge of anxiety, 
remorse, fear, despair, and yet to put on all the appearances of serenity 
and happiness, cannot be endured much longer. 

I am well-nigh discouraged. If you too cease to trust me, to love me, 
I am alone. I have not another person to whom I could go. 

"Well, to God I commit all — whatever it may be here, it shall be well 
there — with sincere gratitude for your heroic friendship, and with sin- 
cere affection, even though you love me not, 

I am yours (though unknown to you), H. W. B. 

The letter of Mrs. Tilton, which is here partly quoted, is as follows : 

Tuesday. — I leave for the West Monday next. How glad I was to 
learn you were your own self Sunday morning! Theodore's mind has 
been hard toward you of late, and I think he proposes an interview with 
you by word or note before leaving home. If so, be not cast down. I 
bear this almost alw T ays. but the God in whom we trust will deliver us 
all safely. I know you do and are willing abundantly to help him, and 
I also know your embarrassments. I anticipate my western trip, where 
I may be alone with him, exceedingly. 

I now come in my narrative to give an account of the origin of the 
somewhat famous tripartite agreement. Shortly after the foregoing 
letter was written Mr. Tilton returned to the city thoroughly dismayed 
with the result of his lecturing tour. The Golden Age, which had 
then been established for about twelve months, had not succeeded, and 
was understood to be losing money. His pecuniary obligations were 
pressing, and although his claim against Bowen for the violation of his 
two contracts had a year previously been put under the exclusive con- 
trol of Moulton with a view of settlement, no arrangement had as yet 
been effected. About this time Mr. Moulton, who was sick, sent for 
me and showed me a galley proof of an article prepared by Mr. Tilton 
for the Golden Age (and which has since been published in the Brook- 
lyn papers), in which he embodied a copy of a letter written by him to 
Mr. Bowen, dated January 1, 1871, in which he charged Mr. Bowen 
w T ith making scandalous accusations against my moral character. This 
was the first time that I had ever seen these charges, and I had never 
heard of them except by mere rumor, Mr. Bowen never having at any 
time said a word to me on the subject. I was amazed at this proposed 
publication. I did not then understand the real object of giving circu- 
lation to such slanders. My first impression was that Mr. Tilton 
designed, under cover of an attack upon me in the name of another, to 
open a way for a publication of his own pretended personal grievances. 



278 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

I protested against the publication in the strongest terms, but was 
informed that it was not intended as a hostile act to myself, but to Mr. 
Bowen. I did not any the less insist upon my protest against this pub- 
lication. On its being shown to Bowen he was thoroughly alarmed, and 
speedily consented to the appointment of arbitrators to bring about an 
amicable settlement. The result of this proceeding was that Mr. Bowen 
paid Mr. Tilton over $7000, and that a written agreement was entered 
into by Bowen, Tilton, and myself of amnesty, concord, and future 
peace. It was agreed that the offensive article, the publication of 
which had produced such an effect upon Mr. Bowen and secured a 
happy settlement, should be destroyed without seeing light. It was 
an act of treachery, peculiarly base, that this article was permitted to 
get into hands which would insure its publication, and that it was pub- 
lished. I was assured that every vestige of it had been destroyed, nor 
until a comparatively recent period did I understand how Mr. Tilton 
secured the publication without seeming to be himself responsible for 
the deed. 

Finally, after vainly attempting to obtain money both from myself 
and my wife as the price of its suppression, the Woodhull women pub- 
lished their version of the Tilton scandal in the November of 1872. 
The details given by them were so minute, though so distorted, that 
suspicion was universally directed toward Mr. Tilton as the real author 
of this, which he so justly calls, " a wicked and horrible scandal," 
though it is not a whit more horrible than that which he has now 
fathered, and not half so wicked, because those abandoned women did 
not have personal knowledge of the falsity of their story, as Mr. Tilton 
lias of his. 

To rid himself of this incubus, Mr. Tilton drew up a voluminous paper 
called "A true statement," but which is familiarly called " Tilton's case." 
I had some knowledge of its composition, having heard much of it read; 
but some documents were only referred to as on file, and others had 
not yet been manufactured. Tilton's furor for compiling statements 
was one of my familiar annoyances. Monlton used to tell me that the 
only way to manage Theodore was to let him work off his periodical 
passion on some such document, and then to pounce upon it and sup- 
press it. This particular " true statement " was a special plea or abate- 
ment of the prejudices excited by his Woodhull partnership. It was a 
muddle of garbled statements, manufactured documents and down- 
right falsehoods. This paper I know he read to many, and I am told 
that he read it to not less than fifty persons, in which he did not pretend 
to charge immorality upon his wife ; on the contrary, he explicitly 
denied it, and asserted her purity, but charged me with improper over- 
tures to her. It was this paper which he read to Dr. Storrs, and 
poisoned therewith his mind, thus leading to the attempt to prosecute 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 279 

Tilton in Plymouth Church, the interference of neighboring 1 churches, 
and the calling of the Congregational Council. After the Woodhull 
story was published, and while Mr. Tilton seemed really desirous for a 
short time of protecting his wife, I sent through him the following 
letter to her : 

My Dear Mrs. Tilton: — I hoped that you would be shielded from 
the knowledge of the great wrong that has been done to you, and 
through you to universal womanhood. I can hardly bear to speak of it 
or allude to a matter than which nothing can be imagined more painful 
to a pure and womanly nature. I pray daily for you "that your faith 
fail not." You yourself know the way and the power of prayer. God 
has been your refuge in many sorrows before. He will now hide you 
in his pavilion until the storm be overpast; the rain that beats down the 
flower to the earth will pass at length, and the stem, bent but not 
broken, will rise again and blossom as before. Every pure woman on 
earth will feel that this wanton and unprovoked assault is aimed at you. 
but reaches to universal womanhood. Meantime your dear children 
will love you with double tenderness, and Theodore at whom the shafts 
are hurled, will hide you in his heart of hearts. I am glad that revela- 
tion from the pit has given him a sight of the danger that has before 
been hidden by spurious appearances and promises of usefulness. May 
God keep him in courage in this arduous struggle which he wages 
against adversity, and bring him out through much trial, like gold seven 
times refined. 1 have not spoken of myself. No words could express the 
sharpuess and depth of my sorrow in your behalf, my dear and honored 
friend. God walks in the fire by the side of those he loves, and in 
heaven neither you nor Theodore nor I shall regret the discipline, how 
hard soever it may seem now. May He restrain and turn those 
poor creatures who have been given over to do all this sorrowful harm 
to those who have deserved no such treatment at their hands ! I com- 
mend you to my mother's God, my dear friend! May his smile bring 
light in darkness, and his love be a perpetual summer to you. 

Very truly yours, Henry Ward Beecher. 

The whole series of events beginning with the outbreak of the Wood- 
hull story repeatedly brought me a terrible accumulation of anxieties and 
perils. Everything that had threatened before now started up again with 
new violence. Tilton's behavior was at once inexplicable and uncontrol- 
lable. His card " to a complaining friend " did not produce the effect he 
pretended to expect from it, of convincing the public of his great mag- 
nanimity. Then his infamous article and letter to Mr. Bowen made its 
appearance in the Eagle. It had been suggested that the publication of 
the "tripartite covenant" would have a good effect on counteracting 
the slanderous stories about Mrs. Tilton and myself which Theodore pro- 
fessed to regard, but which his foolish card and the publication of that 
article had done so much to revive and render mischievous. Mr. Moul- 
ton urged me to get from the gentleman who held the "tripartite cov- 
enant " a copy of it for us. when suddenly Mr. Wilkeson came out with 
it on his responsibility. Tts publication in this manner I made stren- 
uous but unavailing efforts to prevent. He had originally kept a cojy 



280 THE TRUE HISTORY. 

of it. (Everybody in this business seems to have copies of everything 
except myself.) On the appearance of that paper Theodore went into a 
rage. It put him, he said, in a " false position " before the public, and 
he said he would publish another card giving a statement something like 
what he afterward wrote to Dr. Bacon, that is, as I recollect the matter, 
declaring that I had commit te 1 an offence and that he had been the 
magnanimous party in the business. It was necessary to decide what 
to do with him. Moulton strangely urged a card from me exonerating 
Theodore (as I could honestly do) from the authorship of the particular 
scandals detailed in his article to Mr. Bowen and alluded to in the cove- 
nant. 

I said I would think it over, and perhaps write something. This 
was Friday or Saturday. The covenant appeared on Friday morning, 
and the alarm was sounded on me immediately that Theodore would do 
something dreadful if not restrained. On Sunday I made up my mind 
to write to Mr. Moulton the following letter, garbled extracts of which 
are given in Mr. Tilton's statement : 

BEECHER TO MOULTOX. 

Sunday Morning, June 1, 1873. 

My Dear Friend : — The whole earth is tranquil and the heaven is 
serene, as befits one who has about finished his world life. 

I could do nothing on Saturday. My head was confused. 

But a good sleep has made it like crystal. I have determined to make 
no more resistance. Theodore's temperament is such that the future, 
even if temporarily earned, would be absolutely worthless, rilled with 
abrupt changes, and rendering me liable, at any hour or day, to be 
obliged to stultify all the devices by which we saved ourselves. 

It is only fair that he should know that the publication of the card 
which he proposes would leave him far worse off than before. 

The agreement was made after my letter, through you, was written. 
He had it a year. He had condoned his wife's fault. He had enjoined 
upon me with the utmost earnestness and solemnity not to betray his 
wife, nor leave his children to a blight. I had honestly and earnestly 
joined in the purpose. 

Then, this settlement was made and signed by him. It was not my 
making. He revised his part so that it should wholly suit him, and 
signed it. It stood unquestioned and unblamed for more than a year. 
Then it wan published. Nothing but that. That which he did in pri- 
vate, when made public, excited him to fury, and he charges me with 
making him appear as one graciously pardoned by me! It was his own 
deliberate act, with which he was perfectly content till others saw it, and 
then he charges a grievous wronsr home on me ! 

My mind is clear. I am not in haste. I shall write for publication a 
statement that will bear the lisrht of the judgment day. God will take 
care of me and mine. When I look on earth it is deep night. When I 
look to the heavens above I see the morning breaking. But oh ! that I 
could put in golden letters my deep sense of your faithful, earnest, undy- 
ing fidelity, your disinterested friendship. Your whole life, too, has 
been to me one of God's comforters. 




281 



282 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

It is such as she that renews a waning faith in womanhood. Now, 
Frank, I would not have you waste any more energy on a hopeless task. 
With such a man as T. T. there is no possible salvation for any that 
depend upon him. With a strong nature, he does not know how to 
govern it. 

With generous impulses, the under-current that rules him is self. 
With ardent affections, he cannot love long that which does not repay 
him with admiration and praise. With a strong theatric nature, he is 
constantly imposed upon with the idea that a position — a great stroke — 
a coup d'etat is the way to success. Besides these, he lias a hundred 
good things about him, but these named traits make him absolutely 
unreliable. 

Therefore there is no use in further trying. I have a strong feeling 
upon me, and it brings great peace with it, that I am spending my last 
Sunday and preaching my last sermon. Dear, good God, I thank thee. 
I am indeed beginning to see rest and triumph. The pain of life is but 
a moment, the glory of the everlasting emancipation is wordless, incon- 
ceivable, full of becoming glory. Oh, my beloved Frank, I shall know 
you there, and forever hold fellowship with you, and look back and smile 
at the past. Your loving H. W. B. 

There are intimations in the beginning and end of this letter that I 
felt the approach of death. With regard to that, I merely refer to 
my previous statement concerning my bodily symptoms, and add that 
on this day I felt symptoms upon me. The main point is that I was 
worried out with the whole business, and would have been glad to 
escape by death, of which I long had little dread. I could see no end 
but death to the accumulation of torture, but I resolved to stop short 
and waste no more time in making matters worse. I felt that Mr. 
Moulton had better stop too, and let the whole thing come out. I de- 
termined then to make a full and true statement, which I now make, 
and to leave the result with God. Mr. Tilton had repeatedly urged 
me, as stated in my letter, not to betray his wife, and I felt bound by 
every sense of honor, in case I should be pressed by inquiries from my 
church or family as to the foundations of rumors which might reach 
them, to keep this promise. By this promise I meant only that I would 
not betray the excessive affection which his wife, as I had been told, 
had conceived for me, and had confessed to him. It certainly did not 
refer to adultery. If there had been such a fact in existence, its be- 
trayal would have ruined me as well as her, and a pledge not to betray 
myself would have been too absurd to be mentioned in this letter. In 
reply to this note, which was calm and reserved, rather than gloomy, 
Mr. Moulton wrote that same day a letter of three and a half sheets of 
copy paper. He began as follows : 

My Dear Friend: — You know T have never been in sympathy with 
the mood out of which you have often spoken as you have written this 
morning. If the truth must be spoken, let it be. I know you can stand 
if the whole case was published to-morrow, and in my opinion it shows 
a selfish faith in God. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 283 

Having proceeded thus far Mr. Moulton seems to have perceived that 
the tone of this letter was rather likely to determine me in my deter- 
mination to publish the whole case than otherwise; and as this was 
opposed to the whole line of his policy, he crossed out with one dash of 
the pencil the whole of this and commenced anew : 

MOULTON TO BEECHER. 

Sunday, June 1, 1873. 
My Dear Friend : — Your letter makes this first Sabbath of summer 
dark and cold like a vault. You never inspired me with courage or 
hope, and if I had listened to you alone my hands would have dropped 
helpless long ago. You don't begin to be in the danger to-day that has 
faced you many times before. If you now look it square in the eyes, it 
will cower and slink away again. You know that I have never been in 
sympathy with, but that I absolutely abhor the unmanly mood out of 
which your letter of this morning came. This mood is a reservoir of 
mildew. You can stand if the whole case were published to-morrow. 
In my opinion, it shows only a selfish faith in God to go whining into 
heaven, if you could with a truth that you are not courageous enough, 
with God's help and faith in God, to try to live on earth. You know 
that I love you, and because I do I shall try and try and try, as in the 
past. You are mistaken when you say that " Theodore charges you 
with making him appear as one graciously pardoned by you." He said 
the form in which it was published in some of the papers made it so 
appear, and it was from this that he asked relief. I do not think it im- 
possible to frame a letter which will cover the case. May God bless 
you. I know he will protect you. Yours, Frank. 

In the haste of writing Mr. Moulton apparently failed to perceive 
what he had written in the first instance, on one side of a half sheet of 
paper, and used the clean side of that half sheet for the purpose of the 
letter, which he sent in the shape he had given. But it will be seen 
that he deliberately, and twice in succession, reaffirmed his main state- 
ment that there was nothing in the whole case on which I could not 
safely stand. He treated my resolution as born of such morbid despair 
as he had often reproached me for, and urged me strongly to maintain 
my faith in him. Tilton yielded to his persuasion, and graciously al- 
lowed himself to be soothed by the publication of a card exonerating 
him from the authorship of the base lies to which the tripartite cove- 
nant referred. So once more, and this time against my calmer judg. 
ment, I patched up a hollow peace with him. 

That I have grievously erred in judgment with this perplexed case, 
no one is more conscious than I am. I chose the wrong path and 
accepted a disastrous guidance in the beginning, and have indeed trav- 
elled on a " rough and ragged edge " in ray prolonged efforts to suppress 
this scandal, which has at last spread so much desolation through the 
land. But I cannot admit that I erred in desiring to keep these matters 
out of sight. In this respect I appeal to you and to all Christian men 
to judge whether almost any personal sacrifice ought not to have 



284 THE TKUE H1ST0KY OF 

been made rather than to suffer the morals of an entire community, 
and especially of the young, to be corrupted by the filthy details of 
scandalous falsehoods, daily iterated and amplified, for the gratification 
of impure curiosity and the demoralization of every child that is old 
enough to read. 

The full truth of this history requires that one more fact should be told, 
especially as Mr. Tilton has invited it. Money has been obtained from 
me in the course of these affairs in considerable sums, but I did not at 
first look upon the suggestions that I should contribute to Mr. niton's 
pecuniary wants as savoring of blackmail. This did not occur to me 
until I had paid, perhaps, $2000. Afterward I contributed at one time, 
$5000. After the money had been paid over in five $1000 bills — to 
raise which I mortgaged the house I live in — I felt very much dissatis- 
fied with myself about it. Finally a square demand and a threat were 
made to me by my confidential friends, that if $5000 more was not paid, 
Tilton's charges would be laid before the public. This I saw at once 
was blackmail in its boldest form, and I never paid a cent of it, but 
challenged and requested the fullest exposure. 

But after the summer of 1873 I became inwardly satisfied that Tilton 
was, inherently and inevitably, a ruined man. I no longer trusted either 
his word or his honor. I came to feel that his kindness was but a snare, 
and his professions of friendship treacherous. He did not mean well by 
me, nor by his household; but I suffered all the more on this account. 
As he had grown up under my influence and in my church, I uould 
never free myself from a certain degree of responsibility for his misdo- 
ings, such as visits a father for a wrong-doing son, and in times of great 
mental depression this feeling sometimes amounted almost to a mania. 

Among the last desperate efforts to restrain him from overwhelming 
himself, his family, myself, the church, and the whole community with 
the fetid blood of scandal, which he had by this time accumulated, were 
those connected with the charges of Mr. West, and the subsequent pro- 
ceedings of the Examining Committee of the church. The prosecution 
of Mr. Tilton I felt bound to prevent. In any form I would strive to 
prevent the belching forth of a scandal ; but in that form it was peculi- 
arly distasteful. It presented no square issues upon which my guilt or 
innocence could be tried. It was a roundabout issue, on which Mr. 
Tilton could have escaped possibly by showing that he believed the 
stories he told about me, or that he had not " circulated " them, or by 
the mere failure on the other side to prove that he had done so, or by 
the decision that he was a monomaniac, and not responsible. Any such 
half-way decision would leave me in the attitude of overthrow, and yet 
no party to the case ! Moreover, I felt that Mr. Tilton thought I was 
setting ray church against him — and I was bound he should not think 
that ; for if it had not been for me he would have been dropped two 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 285 

years before for non-attendance, and for his distinct notice to me that he 
was out of the church. I had got the Examining Committee to post- 
pone the usual action because he was letting his wife still attend the 
church; and I thought that would gradually influence him for good. 
Indeed he had deluded me with hopes that he would give up his bad 
women associates and reform his life. 

I felt that we had no right to claim him as a member under the cir- 
cumstances for the sole purpose of his public trial. Mr. Moulton in- 
sisted that everything must be done to prevent that trial, as the Exam- 
ining Committee was likely to be equally divided whether the facts 
sustained Mr. Tilton's plea, whether he was out of the church or not. 
I was so determined to carry out my pledges to Moulton for him, and do 
all in human power to save him, even from himself, that I was ready to 
resign if that would stop the scandal. I wrote a letter of resignation, 
not referring to charges against me, but declaring that I had striven for 
years to maintain secrecy concerning a scandal affecting a family in the 
church, and that as I had failed, I herewith resigned. This letter was 
never sent. A little calmer thought showed me how futile it would be 
to stop the trouble — a mere useless self-sacrifice — but I showed it to Mr. 
Moulton, possibly he copied it. I have found the original of it in my 
house. If I could at this moment remember any of the other letters which 
I have written to Mr. Moulton, I would do so. If he has preserved all 
my effusions of feeling, he must have a large collection. I wished him 
to bring them all before the committee. I should have been glad to get 
such hints as they may contain to refresh my recollection of facts and 
sequences. 

I have no fear of their full and fair publication, for though they would 
doubtless make a sad exposure of my weakness, grief and despondency, 
they do not contain a line confessing such guilt as has been charged 
upon me, or a word inconsistent with my innocence, nor any other spirit 
than that of a generous remorse over a great and more and more 
irreparable evil. 

But however intense and numerous may be these expressions of grief, 
they cannot possibly overstate the anxiety which I constantly felt for the 
future (the perils of which it is now clear I did not exaggerate), nor the 
sorrow and remorse which I felt originally on account of the injury 
which I supposed I had unwittingly done to a beloved family, and after- 
ward for the greater injury which I became satisfied I had done by my 
unwise, blind and useless efforts to remedy that injury, only as it proved 
at the expense of my own name, the happiness of my own family, and 
the peace of my own church. 



286 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

THE CONCLUSION. 

Gentlemen of the Committee : — In the note requesting your appoint- 
ment I asked that you should make full investigation of all sources of 
information. You are witnesses that I have in no way influenced or in- 
terfered with your proceedings or duties. I have wished the investiga- 
tion to be searching, that nothing could unsettle the results. 

I have nothing to gain by any policy of suppression or compromise. 

For four weeks I have borne and suffered enough, and I will not go a 
step further. I will be free. I will not walk under a rod or yoke. If 
any man would do me a favor let him tell all he knows now. 

It is not mine to lay down the law of honor, or regard to the use of 
other persons' confidential communications. But in so far as my own 
writings are concerned, there is not a letter nor document which I am 
afraid to have exhibited, and I authorize any and call upon any living 
person to produce and print forthwith whatever writing they have from 
any source whatsoever. 

It is time, for the sake of decency and of public morals, that this matter 
should be brought to an end. It is an open pool of corruption exhaling 
deadly vapors. 

For six weeks the nation has risen up and sat down upon scandal. 
Not a great war nor a revolution could more have filled the newspapers 
than this question of domestic trouble, magnified a thousand-fold, and, 
like a sore spot on the human body, drawing to itself every morbid 
humor in the blood. 

Whoever is buried with it, it is time that this abomination be buried 
below all touch or power of resurrection. 



XXIII. 

CROSS-EXAMINATION OF MR. BEECHER. 

Immediately after the conclusion of his statement, Mr. 
Beecher was cross-examined by the various members of the 
committee. This examination was as follows: 

By Mr. Storrs — You spoke of Mr. Tilton being a reporter for the 
Observer; was it not the Times? A. The Observer never had a reporter 
in the sense in which we now have, or the sense in which we use that 
term, but he was a worker, a man of all work, in the editorial and pub- 
lishing departments of the Observer. I know nothing about his connec- 
tion with the Times. 

By Mr. Sage — I would like to inquire how Mr. Moulton first entered 
this case, and how he came to be your confidant ? A. Mr. Moulton was 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 287 

a schoolmate and friend of Mr. Tilton, and Mr. Tilton, when his various 
complicated troubles came upon him in connection with Mr. Bowen, 
went to Mr. Moulton and made him his adviser and helper. That is the 
way that he came into the case. 

Q. Can you tell us how you came to write that letter of despondency 
dated February 5, 1872, to Mr. Moulton ? A. I would come back from 
a whole week's lecturing, and would be perfectly lagged out, and the 
first thing on getting home there would be some confounded develop- 
ment opening on me, in this state of mind in which I had not longer 
any resistancy or rebound in me. So I would work the whole week out. 
And that is the way it happened time and time again. On one of these 
occasions I went to Mr. Moulton's store. Mr. Moulton had always 
treated me with the greatest personal kindness. He never had refused 
by day or by night to see me or to listen to me. I never saw him out 
of mood toward me after the first few months. He treated me as if he 
loved me. On this occasion I went down to the store to see him and his 
face was cold toward me. I proposed to walk with him, and he walked 
with me in such a way that it seemed to me as though it was irksome to 
him to have me with him, and as though he wanted to shake me off. 
Now anything like that all but kills me. I don't wish to push myself 
upon anybody; to feel that I have pushed myself upon any human being 
who does not want me is enough to kill me ; and to be treated so by him 
at that time made it seem to me as though the end of the world had 
come. For he was the only man on the globe that I could talk with on 
this subject. I was shut up to every human being. I could not go to 
my wife, I could not go to my children, I could not go to my brothers 
and sisters, I could not go to my church. He was the only one person 
to whom I could talk ; and when I got that rebuff from him it seemed 
as though it would kill me, and the letter was the product of that mood 
into which I was thrown. 

By Mr. Sage — When was this interview with the pistol ? A. The first 
interview was at Mr. Moulton's house, December 30, and the next was 
at my own on the next day. 

A THREATENING INTERVIEW. 

Q. Did you consider the interview at Mr. Moulton's house a threaten- 
ing interview? I have heard from some source that the door was locked? 
A. That is stated in my statement. 

Q. What was your impression from that act of locking the door ? A. 
I did not think anything about it, nor care a snap about it. I only re- 
membered it afterward. His family were away visiting, and the family 
was alone for several days ; and when he came in he not only locked 
the door, but he took the key out and put it in his pocket. I must have 
noticed it, or it would not have come to my memory. He said some- 



288 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

tiling about not being interrupted in any way. The servant girl was in 
the house, 1 think. 

Q. Then Mr. Tilton locked the door when you went into the room 
with him? A. Not that I remember. 

Q. Did Mr. Tilton at that time make any charge of adultery ? A. 
No, sir. 

Q. What was Mr. Moulton's manner at that time when he demanded 
the retraction of Mrs. Tilton's threatening ? A. I should describe it as 
being exceedingly one of intense excitement. 

Q. Did it impress you with any sense of personal danger ? A. 
No, sir. 

Q. Was it the result of that evening conversation, and full and free 
expression from yon, that he came to be your confidant, and that he 
seemed to sympathize with you ? A. No, sir ; that was the result, 
probably, of some months' intercourse. 

tilton's PROSPERITY. 

Q. Do you suppose that you or the community would have heard any- 
thing of these troubles of Mr. Tilton with his family had he been a 
successful man ? A. I am morally certain that the thing would hare 
been buried deeper than the bottom of the sea if Mr. Tilton had gone 
right on to a prosperous career and he had had the tood which he had 
been accustomed to ; but Mr. Tilton is a man that starves for want of 
flattery; and no power on God's earth can ever make him happy when 
he is not receiving some incense. 

Q. I understand, by your statement, that you first met Mr. Monitor* 
at Mr. Page's studio ; is that correct? A. The first meeting with Mr. 
Moulton that ever led mc to know him — I think of him as distinctly as 
a thousand other men — was, that I had undoubtedly met him before, but 
not in a way that had made any impression upon me. I date my knowl- 
edge of the man from that time. He was having his portrait painted at 
the same time, and we met there occasionally. I remember that on one 
occasion we walked from Page's studio clear down to his door, or to 
Fulton Ferry, and talked of public matters all the way; and I recollect 
being impressed with the feeling that he was an acute fellow, and that 
he had strong literary tastes — as he has. 

Q. Had you ever visited his house in a social way prior to his call at 
your house on this business? A. Never. 

Q. Then you had no intimate personal relations -with him? A. 
None. 

Q. So that when he came to you he came rather as Mr. Tilton's 
friend than otherwise ? A. Altogether. 

Q. When did you come to believe that that relation was becoming 
one of mutual friendship ? A. I cannot tell you, but it was some 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 289 

time afterward. The transition was made during the consultation 
which they held as to how Mr. Bowen should be managed, so as to do, 
as they said, justice to Mr. Til ton. Once or twice he said to me, when 
I told him something, " Then that is the right tiling." I recollect that 
on one occasion I made a confidential statement to him about some 
matter that they never could have found out otherwise, and he said 
(I don't recollect the words, I only have a recollection of the impression 
that was made on my mind) that I never should regret putting confi- 
dence in him. It sprang from some statement that I had made. He 
gave token of his pleasure at my trust in him, as if to encourage, as it 
were, a full trust, and he said that I never should regret having put con- 
fidence in him — which I shall regret to the day of my death. 

Q. In the course of your conversation when the so-called apology 
was written, did he say anything to you to the effect that there was 
nothing about the case but what an apology might cover ? A. He 
made the impression on my mind not only that Mr. Tilton had been 
greatly injured, but that Mr. Tilton was saturated with the conviction 
that I was using my whole power against him. When my disclosure 
of my real feelings was made to him he listened with a kind of incre- 
dulity, as if he was acting a part. But when I shed tears, and my voice 
broke, and I walked up and down the room with unfeigned distress, he 
seemed to be touched, and finally lie said, " Now, if that is the way you 
feel, if Mr. Tilton could be made to see it, this whole thing could be 
settled." 

Q. Tf you used the words, " He would have been a better man in my 
circumstances than I have been," what did you mean by them ? A. I 
do not know, I'm sure. The conversation ran on hypothetically in re- 
spect to the betrayal of a friend in an hour of emergency, in respect to 
undermining Mr. Tilton just at the time when Mr, Bowen and all the 
world were leaving him ; in respect to a want of fidelity. And there is 
one thing that you are to bear in mind — a thing that I have never men- 
tioned to any of you. and that had a very strong influence upon me. I 
never can forget a kindness done to me. When the war broke out my 
son went into a Brooklyn regiment and after being seven months in a 
camp at "Washington, he played a series of pranks on some of the officers 
and got himself into great trouble, and Colonel Adams recommended 
him to resign, and he came to me. Well, it broke my heart. I had 
but one boy that was old enough to go. that I could offer to my coun- 
try; and I told Theodore, who was in the office with me. He made the 
case his own. Mr. Tilton has a great deal in his upper nature. If he 
could be cut into, and his lower nature could be separated from the 
upper, there is a great deal in his upper nature that is capable of great 
sweetness and beauty. At any rate he took up my case. He suggested 
himself that the thing to do would be to get him transferred into the 
19 



290 THE TKUE HISTOKY OF 

regular army. He said that he knew Sam Wilkeson, a correspondent 
of the Tribune, who was at that time in Washington, and had great 
influence, and that he would go right on that night and secure this 
thing. He did, without a moment's delay, start and go to Washington, 
and he secured, through Sam Wilkeson, from Simon Cameron, then 
Secretary of War, the appointment of Henry as a second lieutenant in 
the Fourth Artillery service. I have felt ever since that in the doing 
that thing he did the most royal service. I have felt it.exquisitely ; and 
there has not been a time when I have done anything that hurt Tilton 
that that thing has not come back to me ; and when it seemed as though 
1 had in an hour of his need and trouble stepped aside and even helped 
to push him down, I felt it very acutely. 

Q. Here are three letters written on February 7, 1871. I am not 
quite sure whether I understood you correctly in saying that you did 
not see Theodore's letter to Moulton of that date? A. I have no re- 
membrance of it. I only know that there was an arrangement among 
us to bring an influence to bear upon Elizabeth in consequence of her 
state of mind. I used to say to him, " Moulton, I am a man walking in 
the open air and full of work, and Theodore is at loose and doing what- 
ever he pleases; and we can come down and talk to you and have 
counsel ; but what human being has Elizabeth Tilton to talk with her 
in her trouble — she is shut up at home sick and unbefriended, and it is 
not generous for us to let her go unthought of and uncared for." I was 
always saying that there ought to be somebody who should think of her. 
Q. In your letter of the same date to Mr. Moulton this occurs: 
"Would to God, who orders all hearts, and by his kind mediation, 
Theodore and Elizabeth and I could be made friends again. Theodore 
will have the hardest task in such a case." Precisely what did you 
mean ? Why that last sentence ? A. It is all a muddle to me, as I 
don't recall the precise working of my mind. I have no vivid recollec- 
tion of the making up of the letter, or of the precise moods under which 
I wrote. I cannot give the reason of the sentence, or of that sentence. 
I only know the general drift which we were on. 

Q. I call your attention to it because criticism is made in certain 
quarters that it referred to Mr. Tilton's marital trouble growing out of 
your offence. A. Well, but see : isn't it agoing back to friendship ? 
Isn't it the restoration of the family ? 

Q. What you ask for is that you three should be made friends again? 
A. Yes ; that we should all co-operate. 

Q. And you say that Theodore will have the hardest task? A. 
There was a family that by circumstances had been brought to the bit- 
terest antagonisms at a time of the most profound adversity, when Mr. 
Tilton had got to struggle for his livelihood, for his name, for his posi- 
tion, and for his household. Everything put together, he was in a situ- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 291 

ation in which he had got to exert himself in every way for restoration 
in every manner ; and the point was that she should co-operate with 
him, as with his friends. If she had her sorrows to bear at home, he 
had his too. That is what I think it likely may have suggested those 
words ; but I don't say that it is, because I don't remember. Elizabeth, 
you know, was at times immensely bitter against Theodore, and felt that 
she had been the aggrieved one ; and I had been led to suppose that she 
had not been anything like so much aggrieved as I now suppose she 
has been. 

Q. In the same letter of February 7 you say : " Of course I can never 
speak with her again without his permission, and I don't know that 
even then it would be best." Why did you say that? A. Because, 
either at the time of that letter from Mr. Bowen or in its immediate 
vicinity, Mr. Tilton, as I have the impression now, sent word by Mr. 
Bowen (though I cannot be sure of that) forbidding me ever to enter 
his house again. 

Q. When was that ? A. It was in the vicinity of that whole business, 
but in what way it came, or what the precise date of it was, I cannot 
tell. I only know that the message was conveyed to me from him, but 
by whom, or how, or when. I have forgotten. It was a distinct thing in 
my memory, and afterward he, on one or two occasions, took pains to 
revoke it after he had become reconciled. 

Q. In the same letter occurred the words (which Mr. Tilton, in his 
statement, makes appear to come from another letter, but which, in fact, 
are from the same letter), " When I saw you last I did not expect ever 
to see you again, or be alive many days." What was in your mind when 
you wrote them ? A. Just what I have stated in my statement already. 

Q. Nothing else ? A. No. I know I frequently said " I wish I was 
dead ;" and Theodore Tilton, he came in and said he wished he was dead ; 
and Mr. Moulton was frequently in a state in which he wished he was 
dead ; and Mrs. Moulton said, " I am living among friends, every one of 
whom wishes he was dead," or something like that. I do not know that 
it was smarter than that, but she put it in a way that was very ludicrous. 
Every one of us used to be echoing that wish. We were vexed and 
plagued together, and I used the familiar phrase, " I wish I was dead." 

Q. The outside gossip is that you referred in that line to contem- 
plated suicide. 

Mr. Beecher — How do you propose to cure the gossip ? 

Mr. Winslow— I cannot say. But I want to know if anything of that 
kind was in your mind ? A. It was not. My general purpose in the 
matter of this whole thing was this— (and I kept it as the motto of my 
life)— by patient continuance in well-doing to put to shame those who 
falsely accused me. I meant to put down and preach down this trouble. 
Of course, in my dismal moods I felt as though the earth had come to 



292 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

an end. Now, in interpreting these special letters everybody is irresisti-' 
bly tempted to suppose that everything I said was said narrowly in 
regard to their text, instead of considering the foregoing state of my 
mind ; whereas, my utterances were largely to be interpreted by the past 
as well as by the present or the future. I cannot interpret them pre- 
cisely, as I can a note of hand, or a check. A man that is poetical, a 
man that is oftentimes extravagant, a man that is subject to moods such 
as make me what I am, cannot narrowly measure his words. And yet, 
from this writing of over four years, in every conceivable condition, in 
this large correspondence, proceeding from a mind speaking in hyper- 
bolical moods, and in all manner of states, about everybody and every- 
thing — out of this mass they have got only these few equivocal things. 
" Devices " did not refer to me but to him — his whole style of acting. 

Q. Theodore said he was born for war, and Moulton was probably 
born for diplomacy ? A. Yes. 

By Mr. Cleveland — "Were the plan and method by which from time 
to time these things were managed, by your suggestion or by Mr. Moul- 
ton's ? A. I made suggestions from time to time, generally without any 
effect, and the essential course of affairs, so far as it has not been forced 
upon us from outside influences, has been of his (Moulton's) procuring. 

Q. He managed this whole matter with Mr. Tilton ? A. Yes ; he 
represented himself always as having all the reins in his hands — as 
having in his hands such power that if must should come to must he 
could compel a settlement. He intimated to me time and again that 
he had such materials in his hands respecting Theodore that, as he said 
once, "If Theodore does not do as I say I'll grind him to powder." 

By Mr. Winslow — The " earning the future " I understand was to 
procure the silence and burial of the scandal ? A. No, it wasn't either. 
It referred to the plans by which Tilton was to get something to do and 
do it, and get some praise for it and be content. 

Q. The " devices," did that refer to all the plans and arrangements 
and steps that had been taken ? A. It referred to this. If I had been 
left to manage the matter simply myself, I should have said "yes" or 
"no." That would have been the whole of it; but instead of that the 
matter went into Moulton's hands; and Moulton is a man that loves 
intrigue in such a way that, as Lady Montague said of somebody, " He 
would not carve a cabbage unless he could steal on it from behind and 
do it by a device," and the smallest things and the plainest he liked to 
do in the sharpest way. He was consulting with parties here and there 
and elsewhere, and a great deal of whispering was taking place, and 
finally it would turn out that something was not going to be done that 
he said he would do, and he did not tell me why, and I had to guess. 
There was this wide circuit of various influences through which he was 
moving all the time. 



THE BBGOKLYN SCANDAL. 293 

Q. He had " condoned his wife's fault," what did you mean by this ? 
A. Condoned has a legal meaning and a general meaning, but the gen- 
eral meaning of condoned is to pass over, to make peace, to overlook, 
and I use the word as a literary man would use it, not as a lawyer. If I 
used it in a legal phrase the word would have been " offence," not " fault." 

Q. In using the word fault, do you refer to some particular act of Mrs. 
Tiltoa ? A. I refer to the complaints he made in general in respect to 
her. You know perfectly well what was the impression conveyed to me 
from the beginning to the end — and that was that I had stolen into his 
home, and that I had taken advantage of the simplicity of his wife to 
steal her affection to myself and away from him. 

Q. And do you mean to say that you had that in your mind when you 
used the word fault ? A. I suppose I did. 

Q. You say in the same letter that he had "enjoined upon you most 
earnestly and solemnly not to betray his wife " — in what respect ? A. 
Not to betray this whole difficulty into which his household had been 
cast. Consider how it is. I appeal to every sensitive man and culti- 
vated nature in the world if any greater evil can befall than to have a 
woman, a wife and mother, made the subject of even investigation as 
respects her moral character. For no greater harm can befall a woman 
than to be talked about from house to house, with discussions as to the 
grade of offence and the probable nature of the offence, and the cause of 
the offence and everything about it. Next to stabbing a woman dead is 
to talk about her virtue, and if the public suppose that in order to in- 
terpret these letters I must refer to a vulgar, physical, gross indignity, 
then they are living on a plane where I do not live. You must remem- 
ber that I was aware that in addition to the trouble involving my name, 
Mr. Tilton had also in fits of jealousy accused his wife of criminal inti- 
macy with several gentlemen, of whom I was not one, and had asserted 
in the presence of witnesses that all her children, except the first, were 
the children of these gentlemen respectively. In his decent moods he 
was very anxious to have such accusations unknown to the world. The 
mere rumor of them would cast an ineffaceable blight upon his children. 
Nothing would have induced me to make this explanation, but that Mr. 
Tilton has deliberately chosen to cast a blight of precisely the same kind 
upon those very children by his subsequent course, and all that is left to 
me is the power to speak of this abominable accusation with the scorn 
which such a horrible falsehood deserves. 

Q. You can refer to some points which have already been considered 
for a moment. " I have a strange feeling upon me that I am spending 
my last Sunday and preaching my last sermon." Do you refer to the 
same condition of health and mind that you have described ? A. I 
refer to the fact simply that that was my state of mind during this great 
trouble, although if you were to collect all the language I have used at 



294 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

various times, it might produce an impression that I had wallowed in a 
sea of unparalleled distress. I have had stormy days, and have suffered 
more from this than probably all other causes in my life put together. 
Yet, taking the four years together, I have had more religious peace 
and more profound insight into the wants and sufferings of men since I 
have become acquainted with trouble and despair. I have had an ex- 
perience in the higher regions of Christian life that is worth all the 
sorrow and suffering that I have had to go through to get it. 

Q. Is it or not true that in the course of these matters Mr. Tilton 
expressed a strong desire that the secrets of his family should not be 
known ? A. Always. At least that was his mood, except when he fell 
into a strange mania at times. There were times in which it was very 
evident that he perfectly longed to be obliged to bring out, or to have 
somebody bring out, a scandalous story on his family, in order that he 
might have the credit with the world as to be so magnanimous as still 
to stay at home and live with his wife. 

Q. You say, " My mind is clear. I am not in haste. I shall write 
for the public a statement that will bear the light of the judgment 
day ? " A. I have done it. 

Q. You didn't do it, however, then. Had you any present purpose 
of doing it then ? A. I thought a good many times that I had better 
sit down, before my memory failed me, and make a memorandum of the 
course of events, and the reasons of my conduct. But I was so busy I 
could not do it, and every year it became less possible to do it. 

Q. Here comes a clause in which you express a profound confidence 
in Moulton's fidelity. Does that correctly represent your own feelings? 
A. It does, although Mr. Moulton was not the man that I should select 
as an ideal man. I thought that in that one particular of fidelity to 
friends, he was the most remarkable man I ever met, by the amount of 
time he was willing to give, by the amount of anxiety he was willing to 
encounter, by the doing of work which I suppose is more agreeable to 
him than to me — that is, of seeing different parties, and of ferreting out 
stories and running things back to their source — which I utterly abhor 
in social relations — and consequently trying to keep me in good heart, 
and presenting to me the best sides of Tilton's character, which he 
never failed to do. When I brought to Moulton what seemed to be bad 
and treacherous things I learned of Tilton, he said, " Don't believe a 
word of such things : I will make inquiries ;" and the next time I would 
see him he would have a plausible explanation of the whole thing, and 
I felt as though it was no use to attack Tilton; that he shed every 
arrow that was aimed against him. I have said this not only in refer- 
ence to the impressions he produced upon me, but until the time of the 
Council I was in an abiding faith of Mr. Moulton's truth. Until the 
reply of Mr. Tilton to Bacon's letters, I never had a suspicion of his 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 295 

good faith and of the sincerity with which he was dealing with me; and 
when this letter was published, and Mr. Moulton, on my visiting him in 
reference to it, proposed no counter operation — or no documents, no 
help — I was staggered, and when Tilton, subsequently, published his 
statement, after he came to this committee, when that came out I never 
heard a word from Moulton. He never sent for me, nor visited me, or 
did a thing. I waited for him to say, or do something, for I had said 
to Moulton within the last year, u As things are coming, you never are 
going to manage Tilton; he is going to manage you." I have said to 
him once or twice, " Moulton, Tilton is longer-headed than you are, and 
he has outwitted you ; " and I have said to him, " The time is coming- 
in which I see distinctly you have got to choose between Tilton's state- 
ment and mine." He said, "There never will be, but I shall stand by 
you to the death." He said that to me in the last conversation I had 
with him. 

Q. In view of all that has happened, what is your present feeling as 
to the conduct of Moulton — his sincerity ? A. I have no views to ex- 
press. 

Q. In case of an issue between Tilton and yourself, now, in this pub- 
lished issue which exists between you and Tilton? A. I have no 
expectation of help from Moulton. 

Q. Has Moulton any secret of yours in paper, in document, or in 
knowledge of any act of yours that you would not have see the light this 
hour ? A. Not that I am aware of. 

Q. Have you any doubt ? A. I have none. 

Q. Do you now call upon him to produce all he has and tell all he 
knows ? A. I do, I do. 

By Mr. Cleveland — Have you reason, in the light of recent disclo- 
sures, to doubt his fidelity to you during those four years? A. The 
impression made by him during the four years of friendship and fidelity 
was so strong that my present surprise and indignation do not seem to 
rub it out. I am in that kind of divided consciousness that I was in 
respect to Elizabeth Tilton — that she was a saint and chief of sinners— 
and Mr. Moulton's hold upon my confidence was so great that all that 
has come now affects me as a dream. 

By Mr. Winslow— In your letter of February 5, 1872, you speak of 
the possibility of a ruinous defence of you breaking out ; how could 
there be any ruinous defence, of you? A. A defence of me conducted 
by ignorant people full of church zeal and personal partisan feeling, 
knowing nothing of the facts, and compelling this whole avalanche of 
wind to descend upon the community, might have been ruinous. I 
think now as I then felt. 

Q. It would then be injurious ? A. Where you would say injurious, 
I would say ruinous. 



296 



THE TllUE HISTORY OP 




ME. BEECHER SUPERVISING HIS FARM-WORK. 

Q. You speak of remorse, fear, and despair? A. I suppose I felt 
them all. Whether I was justified in so feeling is a question. When I 
lived in Indianapolis there was an old lawyer named Calvin Fletcher, 
a New England man of large brain, who stood at the head of the bar. 
He was a Methodist, Christian man. He took a peculiar fancy to me, 
and he used to come and see me often when I was a young minister 
and I would see him a great deal. He would make many admirable 
suggestions, one of which was that lie never admitted anybody was to 
blame except the party who made complaint. Says he, " I hold myself 
responsible for having everybody do right by me ; and if they do not 
do right it is because I do not do my duty. And now," said he, "in 
preaching during your life do you take blame upon yourself, and don't 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 297 

you be scolding your church and blaming everybody. It is your busi- 
ness to see that your folks are right." Well, it sank down into my heart 
and became a spring of influence from that day to this. If my prayer 
meetings do not go right it is my fault. If the people do not come to 
church, I am the one to blame for their not coming. If things go 
wrong in my family I find the reason in myself. I have foreseen quar- 
rels in the church, and, if I had left them alone, they would burst and 
break out ; but acting under the advice thus given, and doing my own 
duty, I have had no difficulty in my church. 

Q. An anonymous letter to the committee, from a free lover, says 
that you have a reservation in your philosophy which would enable you 
to say, I had no wrong conduct or relations with Mrs. Tilton, having 
in your own mind a belief that what you are charged with doing was 
right. What are your ideas on the subject ? A. I am not versed in 
the philosophy and casuistry of free love. I stand on the New Eng- 
land doctrine, in which I was brought up, that it is best for a man to 
have one wife, and that he stay by her, and that he do not meddle with 
his neighbors' wives. I abhor every manifestation of the free love 
doctrine that I have seen in theory, and I abhor every advocate of the 
free love doctrine that I have known. 

Q. Did you ever know anybody who took hold of it seriously who 
was not ruined by it? A. No, sir; provided they were susceptible of 
ruin. I have had women write to me that if I did not send them $10 
they were ruined, and I wrote in reply that they were ruined before. 

Q. You speak about having sent Mrs. Tilton a copy of books. Was 
that an act of courtesy specially to her? A. No; I gave them out to 
friends. When one book would come out I would give a copy to a 
friend, and so on. I have not been a great distributer of my own books 
— only in cases where it would be a real pleasure, and from an intima- 
tion that it would be so. 

Q. Are you clear in your recollection that you never met the Wood- 
hulls more than three times? A. I am perfectly clear — that is, to 
speak to them. 

Q. State the times and places ? A. On one occasion, I was walking 
with Mr. Moulton in the general direction of Tilton's house, when he 
said that Mrs. Woodhull was going to be there. I at first hesitated, 
and he said : " Come in, and just see her." I said : " Very well." I 
went in, and after some conversation down in the parlors, I went up- 
stairs into this famous boudoir room, where she sat waiting, and. like 
a spider to a fly, she rushed to me on my entrance, and reached out 
both hands, with the utmost earnestness, and said how rejoiced she was 
to see me. I talked with her about five minutes, and then went down- 
stairs. My second interview with her was on one occasion when I had 
been with some twenty or thirty gentlemen to look at the warehouse 



298 THE TKUE HISTORY OF 

establishment of Woodruff & Robinson. We were on the steamer that 
had been chartered for the occasion. And when I came up, Moulton 
said, " Come with me to town." He never told me there was to be any 
company. When I came there, I learned there was to be something 
in New York in the evening, and that there were to be there a number 
of literary ladies, among whom was Mrs. Woodhull. I was placed at 
the head of the table, near Mrs. Moulton, I think, on her left. Mrs. 
Woodhull was next to me, or else she was first and I was next. 1 do 
not remember which. At that table she scarcely deigned to speak to 
me. I addressed a few words to her, for politeness sake, during the 
dinner, but there was no sort of enthusiasm between us. My third and 
last interview was at Moult on's house. She had addressed to me a 
threatening letter, saying that she would open all the scandal if I did 
not preside at the Steinway Hall, and in reply to that Mr. Moulton 
advised that instead of answering her letter, I should see her and say 
without witnesses what I had to say. She brought with her her great 
subject. It was in type, and my policy was to let her talk, and say 
little, which I did, and she went on saying, " You know you believe so 
and so," and I said nothing, and so on, from point to point, until T 
said, at last, '• Mrs. Woodhull, I do not understand your views ; I have 
never read them thoroughly ; as far as I do understand them, I do not 
believe in them, and though I am in favor of free discussion, yet pre- 
siding at meetings is a thing I seldom do for anybody, and I shall not 
do it for you, because I am not in sympathy with your movement." 

Q. Has Mrs. Woodhull any letters of yours in her possession? 
A. Two, I suppose, unless she has sold them. 

Q. Upon what subject? A. She enclosed a letter to me with one 
from my sister, Mrs. Isabella Hooker, inviting me to be present at the 
Suffrage Convention at Washington. To that letter I replied briefly in 
the negative, but made a few statements in respect to my ideas of 
women's voting. The other letter was just before her scandalous pub- 
lication. She wrote to me a whining letter saving that her reformatory 
movements had brought upon her such odium that she could not pro- 
cure lodgings in New York, and that she had been turned out of the 
Gilsey House, I think, and asking me in a very significant way to inter- 
pose my influence or some other relief for hor. To that letter I replied 
very briefly, saying I regretted when anybody suffered persecution for 
the advocacy of their sincere views, but I must decline interference. 

By Mr. Olaftjn — These are two letters, the signatures of which she 
showed to Mr. Bowen and myself. It was reported that by these letters 
you were to be sunk forty thousand fathoms deep. I told Bowen, before 
I went there, that T knew of the existence of the letters, and that was 
all they contained. Bowen made the journey clear down from Connecti- 
cut on purpose to go up there. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 299 

By Mr. Winslow — Did you ever meet her at Tilton's ? A. The first 
time I ever saw her was at Tilton's. 

Q. Did you ever meet her there any other time ? A. Not that I re- 
call. If I saw her I am perfectly sure that I would know it. I remem- 
ber her well on account of the transcendent description I had heard of 
her, and because of Mrs. Hooker's feelings toward her. Mrs. Hooker 
regarded her as Joan of Arc would a vision of the Virgin Mary, and 
when I went to see her, I went with great expectations, saying to my- 
self, " Here is this woman who is lauded everywhere, and must be a 
power to rise to the head." 

By Mr. Winslow — Can you tell us what became of Mrs. Woodhull's 
threatening letter ? A. Mr. Moulton opened it. 

Q. Now as to what occurred in your library and in his bedchamber — 
I refer to the occasions in which he said you touched his wife's ankle, 
and were found with a flushed face in the bedchamber of his house ? 
A. I do emphatically deny that either of these scenes ever occurred. 

By Mr. White — Q. In one part of your statement you say that in 
December, 1870, you heard of many immoralities of Mr. Tilton, and that 
you believed in their existence. In a later part of your statement you 
say that you had been subsequently deceived into a belief that Mr. Tilton 
was not in fault in respect to his moral conduct. How do you reconcile 
these two statements ? A. Because when the matter came to me from 
Mr. Bowen, and through the visit of Tilton's family, I was under the 
full persuasion of the truth of these things. One of the very first things 
to which Mr. Moulton and Mr. Tilton had addressed themselves was to 
disabuse my mind of this belief concerning Mr. Tilton's moral conduct. 
Tilton alluded to the subject of his own purity with circumstantial and 
historical statements, and Moulton's conduct specially tends to convince 
me that all the allegations against Mr. Tilton respecting such matters 
were false. 

Q. Did you admit at any time to Mr. Moulton or Mr. Tilton, or to 
any other person, that you had ever had any relations with Mrs. Eliza- 
beth R. Tilton, or ever commit any act to or with her, or said any word 
to her, which would be unfit for a Christian man to hold, do or say with 
the wife of his friend, or for a father to hold, do, or say with his daugh- 
ter, or a brother with his sister— did you ever admit this in any form or 
in any words ? A. Never. 

By Mr. Tracy— Q. Did you ever, in fact, hold any such relations, do 
any such act, or utter any such word ? A. Never. 

By Mr. Cleveland— Q. In your statement you have alluded to one 
payment of $5000. Have you furnished any other money to those par- 
ties ? A. I have furnished at least $2000 beside the $5000. 

Q. To whom did you pay that money ? A. To Mr. Moulton. 

Q. In various sums ? A. In various sums, partly in cash and partly 
in checks. 



300 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Q. Have you any of those checks ? A. I have several. I don't re- 
member how many. 

Q. Where are they ? A. I have some of them here — one of June 
23, 1871, drawn on the Mechanics Bank, to the order of Frank Moulton, 
and indorsed in his handwriting ; and one of November 10, 1871, payable 
to the order of Frank Moulton, and indorsed in his handwriting ; and 
one of May 29, 1872, to the order of F. D. Moulton, and also indorsed 
in his handwriting. Each of these that are marked " for deposit " across 
the face have been paid. 

Q. As nearly as you can recollect, how much money went into the 
hands of Mr. Moulton ? A. I should say I have paid $7000. 

Q. To what use did you suppose that money was to be appropriated ? 
A. I supposed that it was to be appropriated to extricate Mr. Tilton 
from his difficulties in some way. 

Q. You did not stop to inquire how or why? A. Moulton sometimes 
sent me a note saying : " I wish you would send me your check," for so 
much. 

Q. Did you usually respond to the demands of Mr. Moulton for money 
during those months ? A. I always did. 

Q. Under what circumstances did you come to pay the $5000 in one 
sum ? A. Because it was represented to me that the whole difficulty 
could be now settled by that amount of money, which would put the 
affairs of the Golden Age on & secure footing, that they would be able 
to go right on, and that with going on of them the safety of Tilton would 
be assured, and that would be the settlement of the whole thing. It was 
to save Tilton pecuniarily. 

Q. Were there any documents shown to you by Moulton? What did 
he show you before you made the payments ? A. It was the result of 
intimations and general statements, and I finally said to him : " I am 
willing to pay $5000." I came to do it in this way : There was a dis- 
cussion about that paper. Moulton was constantly advancing money, 
as he said to me. to help Tilton. The paper was needy. One evening 
I was at his house. We were alone together in the back parlor, and 

Moulton took out of his pocket a letter from . It was read to me, 

in which the writer mentioned contributions which the writer had made 
to Theodore. I understood from him that the writer of this letter had 
given him some thousands of dollars down in cash, and then taking out 
two time checks or drafts which, as I recollected, were on bluish paper 
— although I am not sure of that. There were two checks, each of them 
amounting to one or two thousand" dollars more, and I should think it 
amounted in all to about $6000, although my memory about quantities 
and figures is to be taken with great allowance, but it produced the im- 
pression in me that the writer had given him one or two thousand dol- 
lars in cash down, and, as the writer explained in the letter, it was not 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 301 

convenient to give the balance in money at that time, but that the 
writer had drawn time drafts which would be just as useful to him as 
money, and Moulton slapped the table, and said, " That is what I call 
friendship," and I was stupid, and said, " Yes, it was." Afterward, 
when I got home, and thinking about it in the morning — " Why," said 
I, " what a fool ! I never dreamed what he meant." Then I went to 
him and said to him, " I am willing to make a contribution and put the 
thing beyond a controversy." V al, he said something like this — " That 
he thought it would be the best investment that ever I made in my life." 
I then went to the savings bank and put a mortgage of five thousand 
on my house. I took a check which was given me by the bank's lawyer 
and put it in the bank, and on Moulton's suggestion that it would be 
better than to have a check drawn to his order, I drew the money in five 
hundred dollar or one thousand dollar bills, I have forgotten which, but 
I know that they were large, for I carried the roll in my hand, and these 
I gave into his hands. From time to time he spoke in the most glowing 
terms, and said that he was feeding it out to Theodore, and he said that 
at the time of the first instalment he gave Theodore $500 at once, and 
that he had sent with it a promissory note for Theodore to sign, but 
that Theodore did not sign it, and sent it back to him, saying that he 
saw no prospects in the end of paying loans, and that he could not hon- 
orably, therefore, expect them, and refused to sign any note, and Moul- 
ton laughed significantly and said that Tilton subsequently took the 
money without giving any note. 

Q. Did you receive any note of security whatever, or evidence of debt 
from Mr. Moulton, or has there been any offer to return the money to 
you ? A. Nothing of the kind ; it was never expected to be returned by 
either party. 

Q. Has Moulton said anything to you about money in a compara- 
tively recent period? A. About the time of the publication of the 
Bacon letter, I think I had been given to understand that he had offered 
$5000 in gold to Tilton if he would not publish that letter, and that at 
the then stage of affairs Moulton felt profoundly that Tilton could not 
come out with a disclosure of all this matter without leaving Moulton 
in an awkward position, and that he offered $5000 in gold if Tilton would 
not publish that letter. It led to some little conversation about a sup- 
ply of money, and he said that I had better give him my whole fortune 
than have Tilton go on in his course. 

Q. That you had better give your whole fortune to Mr. Tilton ? A. 
Yes, rather than have Tilton go into this fight. 

Q. Was that before or after the publication of the Bacon letter ? A. 
I can't be certain about that, it was about that time. 

Q. Did Mr. Moulton ever question you in regard to this matter, 
whether you had ever spoken on that to any one, or expressed any 



302 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

anxiety in your mind about it? A. He did, not many weeks ago, 
among the last interviews I had with him. 

Q. Since the publication of that Bacon letter ? A. Yes, I think it 
was on the Sabbath day after the appointment of this Committee. I 
preached but once on that day, and on the afternoon of that day he saw 
me, and said to me in a conversation : " You have never mentioned 
about that five thousand dollars." I said yes, I had to, to one or two 
persons. I mentioned to Oliver Johnson for one, because he was saying 
something to me one day about what some of Tilton's friends were 
saying, and I incidentally mentioned to him, which he never repeated, I 
suppose, to anybody. Moulton said : " I will never admit that ; I shall 
deny it always." 

Q. Have you any objections to state what Tilton's friends were saying 
to Oliver Johnson and others ; what did Oliver Johnson say to you ? 
A. On one occasion he reported to me that among the friends of Tilton 
he had heard reproaches made against me, that I neither was endeavor- 
ing to help Theodore in reputation or in any other way, and that the 
expression was this, that I had been the instrument of his being thrown 
off the track in life, and that I would not reinstate him. I replied in 
substance that so far as reputation was concerned I not only longed and 
tried to do what I could for Tilton, but that his association with the 
Woodhull was fatal to him, and I could not make any head against it. 
And with regard to the other, I said to him that I had been willing to 
help him materially, and that recently I paid $5000 to him. 

Q. Did you see and have a conversation with Tilton soon after the 
payment of the $5000 ? A. On the Sunday morning following the pay- 
ment of $5000, as I was going to church in the morning, I met Mr. 
Tilton standing right opposite the house. He put his arm through 
mine, and was in his most beatific mood. While walking along down 
to the church he was talking all the way of grace, mercy and peace to 
me, and at that time. I recollect thinking that $5000 is very mollifying. 

By Mr. Claflin — Did you at any time receive the note which the 
committee have in evidence as follows : 

H. W. B. : 

Grace, mercy and peace. T. T. 

Sunday Morning. 

A. Yes. He sent it on Sunday morning by his wife, who had it laid 
on my pulpit stand. 

By Mr. Cleveland — If your mortgage was dated about May 1, 1873, 
the money, of course, was paid to Mr. Moulton after your mortgage was 
made ? A. Yes, sir. I did not keep the money an hour ; I went with 
it directly from the Mechanics Bank, where I drew it, and put it into 
Moulton's hands on the same day, and within a few hours. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 303 

Q. At his house ? A. T do not know. 

Q. Did you have trouble with Mr. Tilton during the latter part of 
that month ; before the 1st of June, 1873 ? A. I do not know the 
months in which I have not had trouble with him ; but he made a 
special outburst at the end of the month of May, 1873, on account of 
the publication of the tripartite agreement which led to my letter to 
Moulton, June 1, 1873. 

Q. Here is a letter dated May 1, 1874, in which Tilton refers to some 
story of Carpenter about your offering money. Did you receive that 
letter ? A. I did, sir. It was a magnificent humbug. I knew that Mr. 
Tilton knew that he had been tinkling my gold in his pockets for 
months and years, and he wrote that letter to be published for a sham 
and mask. 

Q. What did you understand by Carpenter's relations to the money 
matter ? A. My first knowledge of Mr. Carpenter was that he was put- 
ting his nose into this business which did not concern him. That was 
also Mr. Moulton's impression. I asked Moulton one day, " What under 
the sun is Carpenter doing around here, and meddling with this mat- 
ter ? " He summarily damned him and represented him as a good- 
natured and well-meaning busybody. I suggested why didn't he tell 
him distinctly that his presence was not wanted. He said : " Well, he 
serves us some useful purposes. When we hear of things going on in 
the clubs or any place in New York, we put Carpenter on the track, 
and he fetches all the rumors, and so we use him to find out what we 
could not get otherwise." And I did find that he not only did that, but 
that Mr. Carpenter was one of those good-natured men whose philan- 
thropy exhibited itself in trying to settle quarrels and difficulties by 
picking up everything he could hear said, by, for, or against a man. and 
carrying it to the parties where it would do the most harm possible. 
He was a kind of genial, good-natured fool ; and in all this matter he has 
been a tool more than a helper. He has never once done anything 
except in the kindest way, and never once done anything in the whole 
of this matter, from beginning to end, that was not a stupid blunder. 
I made up my mind from the beginning that as I was silent to every- 
body in this matter, I would be especially silent to him, Carpenter. I 
recollect but one interview with him that had any particular significance. 
He came to see me once when the Council was in session, and our docu- 
ment was published. There was a phrase introduced into it that Tilton 
thought pointed to him, and Tilton that night was in a bonfire flame, 
and walked up and down the street with Moulton. I was in Freeland's, 
and in comes Carpenter, with his dark and mysterious eyes ; he sat down 
on the sofa, and in a kind of sepulchral whisper, told me of some mat- 
ters. Says I, " That is all nonsense ; " that it meant , and , and 

Carpenter was rejoiced to hear it, and then went out. On another occa- 



304 THE TKUE HISTORY OP 

sion he came to me, and, in a great glow of benevolence, said there was 
to be a newspaper established in New York, and that I was to take the 
editorship of it, and half a million was to be raised almost by the tap of 
a drum. I was greatly amused, but said to him, gravely, "Well, Car- 
penter, if I should ever leave the pulpit, I think it very likely I should 
go into journalism. It would be more natural to me than anything 
else." That was the amount of that conversation. One other occasion 
I have some recollection of, in April, and that was when Mr. Moulton 
had a plan on foot to buy the Golden Age of Tilton, and send him to 
Europe, and Carpenter came in and talked witli me about it. 

I recollect very distinctly that conversation ; my eyes were beginning 
to be enlightened. My education was beginning to tell on me a little, 
and I said to Mr. Carpenter, distinctly, •' Mr. Carpenter, that is a matter 
which I can have nothing to do with. I don't know but that if Tilton 
wishes to go to Europe with his family and live there for some time, 
that his friends would be willing to raise that amount of money; but 
that is a matter you must talk with somebody else, and not with me." 

Q. Did you say that if Tilton printed his documents you would never 
ascend that pulpit again? A. I never said that, and I should never 
talk about the thing with such a weak man as he. 

Q. Who introduced the subject of going to Europe when Carpenter 
came to see you ? A. He did. 

Q. In the statement which you have made and the letters you have 
published you express great agitation, sorrow and suffering, even to 
anguish. How do you reconcile that with the tone of your public 
ministration, and with the declarations of peace and trust which have 
fallen from you from time to time in the lecture-room ? 

A. I explain it precisely in the same way as I do the words of Paul, 
who said that he died deaths daily, that lie was the offscouring of the 
earth — having the care of all the churches — and yet, with all this burden 
on his mind, he described himself as living in the most transcendent 
religious peace and joy that stands on record in human literature. 
"Godly sorrow worketh joy." The first effect of these troubles to me 
was most anguishful and depressing, and oftentimes I lay in them even 
as a ship heaves on the sea in times of calm, when she can make no 
progress, and yet cannot lie still. But after a little came the reaction, 
and by the power of the Holy Ghost my mind was lifted above these 
things, and I said to myself, "It is my business as a man and minister 
to live the doctrines I have been preaching." I have always been telling 
people how to manage sorrow, and telling men how to bear up under 
their troubles. I determined that I would not flinch, whine or sit down. 
I would stand up, and I did not care how much the Lord piled on me. 
I believed he would not put on me more than I could hear, if I rose 
to it, and I took work whenever it offered, and I went through the work 



V 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 305 

and grew strong under it, and at intervals had experiences of peace, and 
of resignation, and of divine comfort which I had never known before 
in all my life. And, in the retrospect of all this trouble, I can say truly 
that I am better capable of interpreting the comfort of the Word of God 
to the sorrowing heart than ever I should have been if I had not passed 
through this discipline. I have lost children ; I have lost brothers ; I 
have had many friends who have died, and some who would not die, 
and yet under all this I have never been more sustained than I have 
in this. 

Q. Notwithstanding your great suffering during the last four years, 
do you feel that your health or powers for labor and usefulness are im- 
paired ? A. I work because I like to work. I worked because my 
whole soul was saying to me, " Go forward and preach." I never 
measured how long the shadow was of my life. I never put a question 
to myself once whether I was higher or lower than other Christian 
ministers. To be called the first preacher in America or the world is 
only throwing a shadow at me. I have but one feeling about this, and 
that is, just as long as I live, every particle of strength, and imagina- 
tion, and feeling, and reason, and body and soul, I give to my country 
and to my kind, and that is all the ambition I have. I never had better 
health than I have today. I do not think the machinery is worn out 
yet, and I do not propose to be idle, and I shall do again what I did in 
the beginning of my life. I never asked anybody for permission to 
work ; I shall not ask anybody now. The channels I am working in 
may flow here or there, but I propose to work fifteen years yet. 

Mr. Beecher's statement was received as conclusive. 
It bore in every line the stamp of truthfulness, and was 
regarded by the public and by the more reputable por- 
tion of the press as not only vindicating himself but as 
completely demolishing Tilton and Moulton. The 
general sentiment of the press is shown in the following 
editorial from the New York Tribwie of August 14 : 

Mr. Beecher has spoken. If the statement we print this 
morning had been given to the world within a reasonable time 
after Mr. Tilton's charges, the scandal would now be dead. 
Delay has made the task of killing the poisonous growth im- 
measurably harder ; but we believe that candid readers will still 
rise from Mr. Beecher's nervous recital with the conviction that 
he has been the victim of a monstrous conspiracy. 
20 



306 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

The case against Mr. Beecher rested — 

First and mainly, On his own letters ; — 

Second, On Mrs. Tilton's confessions ; — 

Third, On Mr. Moul ton's private declarations that the pastor 
had confessed the crime to him ; and 

Fourth, On Mr. Tilton's claim that he had likewise confessed 
it to him. 

If the first of these grounds for believing the monstrous 
charge could be removed, the rest would not support it. The 
second was worthless, because Mrs. Tilton had retracted and 
explained to such an extent that even the judge most prejudiced 
against Mr. Beecher could go no further than to hold her testi- 
mony of no weight on either side. The third was nearly worth- 
less by reason of Mr. Moulton's extraordinary conduct and 
general character ; but it is now utterly demolished by the pro- 
duction of one of Mr. Moulton's letters, explicitly admitting 
that the whole case might be published to the world the next 
day, and Mr. Beecher could stand. And the fourth has not, 
from the first, been regarded by unprejudiced people as of any 
value, and after Mr. Beecher's exposure will seem contemptible. 

The case then rests solely on Mr. Beecher's own letters. Does 
he explain them? He certainly shows that they have been mon- 
strously garbled. The long letter — that in which he speaks of 
living on the sharp and ragged edge of anxiety, remorse, fear 
and despair — proves to have been nearly four times as long as 
the part given by Mr. Tilton, seems thoroughly consistent with 
Mr. Beecher's explanations, and in several points quite incon- 
sistent with the idea of his guilt. The confession itself was 
never written or read by him, some of the sentences in it were 
never uttered by him, and it wholly related to his mental dis- 
tress at finding himself, as he thought, in some way responsible 
for Tilton's business and social ruin. For the rest, the detailed 
account of his dealings with Tilton and Moul ton furnishes a per- 
fectly natural explanation. The fear of apoplexy, especially under 
mental trouble, accounts for the allusions to his probable death, 
expectation of never preaching another sermon, and the like ; 
and the admission that he has paid seven thousand dollars to 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 307 

Tilton, and only stopped when five thousand more were de- 
manded (though given with too little detail), seems to throw a 
flood of light on some of the motives that have led to this 
shocking business. 

The statement will measurably clear away the clouds that 
have been dark and thick about Mr. Beecher's name. If it had 
come sooner, it would, in all probability, have ended the scandal. 
For that we must look now to the cross-examination, which can- 
not yet be weighed, to collateral proofs, and to the calm and late 
judgment of a people always exacting in such cases, but gener- 
ally sure in the end to be just. They will probably regard his 
course as unwise, his friendships as unworthy, his heated lan- 
guage in critical moments as unsafe, and his course through the 
whole miserable business as weak, but not wicked. 



XXIV. 

MR. MOULTON'S FIRST STATEMENT. 

The publication of Mr. Beecher's statement and the 
report of his cross-examination by the committee placed 
Mr. Moulton in the position of a false friend and a party 
to a shameful conspiracy. To relieve himself from the 
odium of these charges, he published, on the 21st of 
August, his first important statement, which he is said 
to have prepared with the aid of Judge Morris and 
General B. F. Butler, in which he not only sought to 
vindicate himself but endeavored to crush Beecher as a 
means to that end. His statement was not presented 
to the committee, but was addressed to the public direct. 
Mr. Moulton gives his reasons for this course in the 
letter addressed " To the Public," which precedes his 
statement. These documents are as follows : 



3C8 



THE TRUE HISTORY OP 




MOULTON, MORRIS, TILTON AND BUTLER PREPARING MOULTON r S 
STATEMENT. 

To the Public: 

I became a party almost accidentally in the unhappy contro- 
versy between Mr. Beecher and Mr. Tilton. I had been a 
friend of Mr. Tilton since my boyhood, and for Mr. Beecher I 
had always entertained the warmest admiration. 

In 1870 I learned, for the first time, that Mr. Beecher had 
given Mr. Tilton so grave a cause of offence that, if the truth 
should be made public, a great national calamity would ensue. 
I believed that the scandal would tend to undermine the very 
foundations of social order, to lay low a beneficent power for 
good in our country, and blast the prospects and blight the 
family of one of the most brilliant and promising of the rising 
men of the generation. This disaster — as I deemed it and still 
regard it — I determined to try and avert. 

For nearly four years I have labored most assiduously to 



. THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 309 

save both of these men from the consequences of their acts, 
whether of unwisdom or passion — acts which have already 
seriously involved them in a needless and disastrous quarrel, 
which is made the pretext of pouring on the community a flood 
of impurity and scandal deeply affecting their own families, and 
threatening like a whirlpool, if not stilled, to draw into its vor- 
tex the peace of mind and good repute of a host of others. 
More than all, I saw that, because of the " transgression of 
another," innocent children would be burdened with a load of 
obloquy which would weigh most heavily and cruelly on their 
young lives. 

All these considerations determined me to take an active part 
in the transactions which have since become so notorious. 

This decision involved me in great anxiety and labor, for 
which the hope of saving these interests could be my only com- 
pensation. Even that reward has now failed me, and instead 
of it an attempt is made to throw on me a part of the shame 
and disgrace which belongs to the actors alone. 

One of them, whom I have zealously eudeavored to serve, 
has seen fit, with all the power of his vast influence and 
matchless art as a writer, to visit on me the penalties of his 
own wrong-doing — at the same time publicly appealing to me 
to make known the truth, as if it would justify his attack 
on me ! 

I feel that the failure of my exertions has not been owing to 
any fault of mine. I worked faithfully and sincerely, under 
the almost daily advice and direction of Mr. Beecher, with his 
fullest approbation, confidence and beaming gratitude, until, as 
I think, in an evil hour for him, he took other advisers. I have 
failed ; and now, strangely enough, he seems to desire to punish 
me for the sad consequences of the folly, insincerity and wick- 
edness of his present counsellors. 

Mr. Beecher, in his statement, testifies that he brought on this 
investigation without my knowledge or advice. 

Even while mourning what seemed to me the utter unwisdom 
of this proceeding, I have done all I could honorably do to 
avert the catastrophe. I have kept silent, although I saw with 



310 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

sorrow that this silence was deeply injuring the friend of my 
boyhood. 

Prompted by a sense of duty — not to one only, but to all the 
parties involved — I denied the united and public appeals made 
to me by Mr. Beecher and Mr. Tilton to produce the evidence 
in my possession — partly because I felt that the injury thereby 
done to Mr. Tilton was far less calamitous than the destruction 
which must come on all the interests I had for years tried to 
conserve, and especially on Mr. Beecher himself, if I should 
comply with this request. 

But I stated clearly that in one emergency I should speak — 
namely, in defence of my own integrity of action, if it should 
be wantonly assailed. 

I left Mr. Beecher untrammelled by the facts in my hands to 
defend himself, without the necessity of attacking me. 

By the published accusations of Mr. Beecher affecting my 
character, my own self-respect, the advice of friends, and public 
justice make it imperative that "the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth w should now be fully declared. 

I give to the public, therefore, the statement I had prepared 
to bring before the committee, without the alteration or addition 
of a sentence and scarcely a word — certainly without the change 
of a single syllable — since I read Mr. Beecher's statement 
and evidence, or because of it. 

This paper I withheld from the committee when before it in 
a last despairing effort for peace, at the earnest solicitation of 
some of Mr. Beecher's friends, and with the approval also of 
some of the most valued of my own. 

I do not now give it to the committee, but to the public, be- 
cause its production concerns myself rather than the principals 
in the strife. It is made for my own protection against public 
accusations, and not to aid either party to the controversy. 

For the needless and cruel necessity that now so imperatively 
compels its production I have the most profound grief — for 
which there is but a single alleviation, namely, that the disclo- 
sure of the facts at this time can scarcely work more harm to 
him whom I at first tried to befriend by withholding them from 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 31 1 

the public than they would have caused him in January, 1871, 
when, but for my interference, the public most assuredly would 
have been put in possession of the whole truth. 

This publication, to which Mr. Beecher forces me, renders 
fruitless four years of constant and sincere efforts to save him. 
It leaves him and Mrs. Tilton in almost the same position in 
which I found them, excepting in so far as their own late disin- 
genuous untruthfulness in their solemn statements may lower 
them in the estimation of the world. 

I reserve to myself the right hereafter to review the state- 
ments of Mr. Beecher in contrast with the facts as shown by the 
documents herewith subjoined and others which I have at my 
hand — the production of which did not seem to be necessary 
until some portion of the published evidence of Mr. Beecher 
demanded contradiction. 

(Signed) Francis D. Moulton. 

STATEMENT OF FRANCIS D. MOULTON. 

Gentlemen of the Committee : — I need not repeat to you my great, 
very great sorrow to feel obliged to answer your invitation and, with the 
permission of the parties, to put before you the exact facts which have 
been committed to me or come to my knowledge in the unhappy affair 
under investigation. In so doing I shall use no words of characteriza- 
tion of any of them or of inculpation of the parties, nor shall I attempt 
to ascribe motives, save when necessary to exactly state the fact, leav- 
ing the occurrences, their acts of omission and commission, to be inter- 
preted by themselves. In giving conversations or narrative I, of course, 
can in most cases give only the substance of the first, and will attempt 
to give words only when they so impressed themselves upon my mind 
as to remain in my memory, and of the latter only so much as seems to 
me material. 

I have known Mr. Theodore Tilton since 1850 intimately, in the kind- 
est relations of social and personal friendship. I have known Rev. 
Henry Ward Beecher since 1869, and then casually as an acquaintance 
and an attendant upon his ministrations up to the beginning of the 
occurrences of which I shall speak. 

Seeing Mr. Tilton's valedictory, as editor of the Independent, on the 
22d of December, 1870, I inferred that there had been some differences 
between himself and Mr. Henry C Bowen, the proprietor, but learning 
that Tilton had been retained as contributor to that journal and editor 



312 THE TKUE HISTOKY OF 

of the Brooklyn Union, of which Bowen was also proprietor, I supposed 
that the differences were not personal or unkind. Up to that time, 
although I had been a frequent visitor at Tilton's house, and had seen 
himself and Mrs. Tilton under all the phases of social intercourse, I had 
never heard or known of the slightest disagreement or unkindness 
existing between them, but had believed their marital relations were 
almost exceptionally pleasant. On the 26th day of December, 1870, 
being at Mr. Tilton's house, he came home from an interview with Mr. 
Bowen, and told me with some excitement of manner that he had just 
had a conference with Bowen, and that in that interview Bowen had 
made certain accusations against Beecher, and had challenged him 
(Tilton), as a matter of duty to the public, to write an open letter, which 
Bowen was to take to Beecher, of which he showed me the original draft, 
which is as follows : 

[FIRST DRAFT — MARKED "A."] 

December 26, 1870— Brooklyn. 
Henry Ward Beecher : 

Sir :— I demand that, for the reasons which you explicitly understand, 
you immediately cease from the ministry of Plymouth Church, and 
that you quit the city of Brooklyn as a residence. 

(Signed) Theodore Tilton. 

Tilton explained that the words " for reasons which you explicitly 
understand " were interlined at the request of Bowen, and he further 
stated that he told Bowen that he was prepared to believe his charges 
because Beecher had made improper advances to Mrs. Tilton. Surprised 
at this, I asked him, " What ? " when he replied, " Don't ask me ; I can't 
tell you." I then said, " Is it possible yon could have been so foolish as 
to sign that letter on the strength of Bowen's assertion, and not have 
Bowen sign it too, although, as you say, he was to carry it to Beecher?" 
He answered, " Mr. Bowen gave me his word that he would sustain the 
charges, and adduce the evidence to prove them whenever called upon." 
I said, " I fear that you will find yourself mistaken. Has the letter 
gone ? " He answered, " Bowen said he would take it immediately." I 
afterwards learned from Beecher that Bowen had done so, because on 
the 1st of January following Beecher gave me the copy he received, as 
I find by a memorandum made at the time on the envelope, and I find 
by a later memorandum on the envelope that the original draft was 
given to me by Tilton on the 5th of the same month. I insert here the 
following memorandum of the facts above stated, made at the time, 
giving the hour when it was made : 

Brooklyn. December 26, 1870. 
Theodore Tilton informed me to-day tha,t he had sent a note to Mr. 
Beecher, of which Mr. H. C. Bowen was the bearer, demanding that he, 
Beecher, should retire from his pulpit and quit the city of Brooklyn. 



THE BKOOKLYX SCANDAL. 313 

The letter was an open one. H. C. Bowen knew the contents of it, and 
said that he, Bowen, would sustain Tilton in this demand. 
3.45 p. m. 

In a day or two after that Mr. Tilton called on me at my house and 
said that he had sent word to Bowen that he was going to call on 
Beecher within half an hour, or shortly ; that Bowen came up into the 
office with great anger, and told him if he should say to Beecher what 
he, Bowen, had told him concerning his (Beeeher's) adulteries, he would 
dismiss him from the Independent and the Union. Tilton told him that 
he had never been influenced by threats, and he would not be in the 
present case, and he subsequently received Bowen's letter of dismissal. 

What those charges were and the account of the interview will apoear 
in the following letter, addressed to Bowen by Tilton, bearing date the 
1st of January, 1871, which also gives in substance and in more detail 
what Tilton had said to me in the two conversations which I have 
mentioned : 

TILTON TO BOWEN. 

Brooklyn, January 1, 1871. 
Mr. Henry C. Bowen : 

Sir : — I received last evening your sudden notices breaking my two 
contracts — one with the Independent, the other with the Brooklyn 
Union. 

With reference to this act of yours I will make a plain statement of 
facts. 

It was during the early part of the rebellion (if I recollect aright) 
when you first intimated to me that the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher had 
committed acts of adultery for which, if you should expose him, he 
would be driven from his pulpit. From that time onward your refer- 
ences to this subject were frequent, and always accompanied with the 
exhibition of a deep-seated injury to your heart. 

In a letter which you addressed to me from Woodstock, June 16, 
1863, referring to this subject, you said : " I sometimes feel that I must 
break silence, that I must no longer suffer as a dumb man, and be made 
to bear a load of grief most unjustly. One word from me would make a 
revolution throughout Christendom, I had almost said — and you know 
it. . . . You have just a little of the evidence from the great volume 
in my possession. ... I am not pursuing a phantom, but solemnly 
brooding over an awful reality." 

The underscorings in this extract are your own. Subsequently to the 
date of this letter, and at frequent intervals from then till now. you 
have repeated the statement that you could at any moment expel Henry 
Ward Beecher from Brooklyn. You have reiterated the same thing not 
only to me but to others. 

Moreover, during the year just closed your allusions to the subject 
were uttered with more feeling than heretofore, and were not unfre- 
quently coupled with your empnatic declaration that Mr. Beecher ought 
not to be allowed to occupy a public position as a Christian preacher 
and teacher. 

On the 26th of December, 1870, at an interview in your house, at 
which Mr. Oliver Johnson and I were present, you spoke freely and in- 



314 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

dignantly against Mr. Beecher as an unsafe visitor among the families 
of his congregation. You alluded by name to a woman, now a widow, 
whose husband's death you had no doubt was hastened by his knowledge 
that Mr. Beecher had maintained with her an improper intimacy. You 
avowed your knowledge of several other cases of Mr. Beecher's adul- 
teries. Moreover, as if to leave no doubt on the mind of either Mr. 
Johnson or myself, you informed us that Mr. Beecher had made to you 
a confession of his guilt, and had with tears implored your forgiveness. 
After Mr. Johnson retired from this interview, 3-011 related to me the 
case of a woman whom you said (as nearly as I can recall your words) 
that . . . 

During your recital of the tale you were full of anger towards Mr. 
Beecher. You said, with terrible emphasis, that lie ought not to remain 
a week longer in his pulpit. You immediately suggested that a demand 
should be made upon him to quit his sacred office. You volunteered to 
bear to him such a demand in the form of an open letter, which you 
would present to him with your own hand ; and you pledged yourself to 
sustain the demand which this letter should make — namely, that he 
should, for reasons which he explicitly knew, immediately cease from 
his ministry of Plymouth Church and retire from Brooklyn. 

The first draft of the letter did not contain the phrase "for reasons 
which he explicitly knew," and these words (or words to this effect) 
were incorporated in a second, at your motion. You urged furthermore 
(and very emphatically) that the letter should demand not only Mr. 
Beecher's abdication of his pulpit, but cessation of his writing for the 
Christian Union, a point on which you were overruled. This letter 
you presented to Mr. Beecher at Mr. Freeland's house. Shortly after 
its presentation you sought an interview with me in the editorial office 
of the Brooklyn Union, during which, with unaccountable emotion in 
your manner, jour face livid with rage, you threatened with a loud 
voice that if I ever should inform Mr. Beecher of the statements which 
you had made concerning his adultery, or should compel you to adduce 
the evidence on which you agreed to sustain the demand for Mr. 
Beecher's withdrawal from Brooklyn, you would immediately deprive 
me of my engagement to write for the Independent and to edit the 
Brooklyn Union, and that in case I should ever attempt to enter the 
offices of those journals you would have me ejected by force. I told 
you that I should inform Mr. Beecher or anybody else, according to the 
dictate of my judgment, uninfluenced by any threat from my employer. 
You then excitedly retired from my presence. Hardly had your violent 
words ceased ringing in my ears, when I received your summary notices 
breaking my contracts with the Independent and the Brooklyn Union. 
To the foregoing narrative of facts, I have only to add my surprise and 
regret at the sudden interruption, by your own act, of what has been, 
on my part towards you, a faithful friendship of fifteen years. 

Truly yours, 
(Signed) Theodore Tilton. 

In this letter I have omitted the sentence quoted as the words of Mr. 
Bewen, after the words, " as nearly as I can recall your words, that " — 
simply desiring to say that it contained a charge of a rape, or something 
very nearly like ravishment, of a woman other than Mrs. Tilton, told 
in words that are unfit to be spread upon the record, but, if desired, the 
original is for the inspection of the committee. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 315 

On Friday evening, the 30th of December, being the night of the 
Plymouth Church prayer-meeting, Tilton came to me and said, in sub- 
stance, that by his wife's request he had determined to see Beecher, in 
order to show to Beecher a confession of his wife of the intercourse 
between them, which he (Tilton) had never up to that time mentioned 
to him (Beecher), and the fact of the confession, of which his wife had 
told him that she had never told Beecher, although her confession had 
been made in July previous in writing, which writing he (Tilton) had 
afterwards destroyed ; but that his wife, fearing that, if the Bowen accu- 
sations against Beecher were made public, the whole matter would be 
known and her own conduct with Beecher become exposed, had renewed 
her confession in her own handwriting, which he handed to me to read, 
which was the first knowledge I had of its existence. 

Tilton did not tell me how his wife came to make the confession in 
July, nor did I at that time or ever after ask. Indeed, I may state here, 
once for all, that I refrained from asking confessions of the acts of all 
the parties further than they chose to make them to me voluntarily for 
the purpose for which I was acting. 

Tilton wanted me to go down and ask Beecher to come up and see 
him at my house, which I did. I said to Mr. Beecher, " Mr. Tilton 
wants you to come and see him at my house immediately." He asked : 
" What for ? " I replied : " He wants to make some statement to you 
in reference to your relations with his family." He then called to some 
one in the back room to go down and say that he should not be at the 
prayer-meeting, and we went out together. 

It was storming at the time, when he remarked : "There is an appro- 
priateness in this storm," and asked me, "What can I do ? What can 
I do ? " I said, " Mr. Beecher, I am not a Christian, but if you wish I 
will show you how well a heathen can serve you." We then went to my 
house, and I showed him into the chamber over the parlor, where Mr. 
Tilton was, and left them together. In about an hour Mr. Beecher came 
down and asked me if I had seen the confession of Elizabeth. I said I 
had. Said he, " This will kill me," and asked me to walk out with him. 
I did so, and we walked to Mr. Tilton's house together, and he went in. 
On the way he said : " This is a terrible catastrophe ; it comes upon me 
as if struck by lightning." 

He went into Tilton's house and I returned home. Within an hour 
he returned to my house, and we left my house again together and I 
walked with him to his house. Tilton remained at my house while 
Beecher was absent at Tilton's house, and when he returned there was 
no conversation between them. When we arrived at Beecher's house 
he wanted me to stand by him in this emergency and procure a recon- 
ciliation if possible. I told him I would, because the interests of wo- 
men, children, and families were involved, if for no other reason. That 



316 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

ended the interview that night. During this evening nothing was said 
by Beecher as to the truth or falsity of Mrs. Tilton's confession, nor did 
he inform me that he had obtained from her any recantation of the con- 
fession, which I afterwards learned he had done. 

I returned to my house and had some conversation with Tilton, in 
which he told me that he had recited to Beecher the details of the con- 
fession of his wife's adulteries, and the remark which Beecher made was, 
11 This is all a dream, Theodore," and that that was all the answer that 
Beecher made to him. I then advised Tilton that, for the sake of his 
wife and family and for the sake of Beecher's family, the matter should 
be kept quiet and hushed up. The next morning as I was leaving home 
for business Tilton came to my house and with great anger said that 
Beecher had done a mean act ; that he had gone from that interview of 
last night to his house and procured from Elizabeth a recantation and 
retraction of her confession. He said for that act he would smite him ; 
that there could be no peace. He said : " You see that what I have told 
you of the meanness of that man is now evident." Tilton said that 
Beecher at the interview of last night had asked his permission to go 
and see Elizabeth and he told him he might go, which statement was 
confirmed by Beecher himself, and Beecher left him for that purpose. 
I said to Tilton: "Now don't get angry; let us'see if even this cannot 
be arranged. I will go down and get that retraction from him." 

I was then going to my business, so that I was unable to go that morn- 
ing, but went that evening, saw Beecher, and told him that I thought 
he had been doing a very mean and treacherous act — treacherous, first, 
towards me, from whom he wanted help, in that he did not tell ine on 
our way to his house last night what he had procured from Mrs. Tilton, 
and that he could not expect my friendship in this matter unless he acted 
truthfully and honorably towards me. I further said : " Mr. Beecher, 
you have had criminal intercourse with Mrs. Tilton; you have done 
great injury to Tilton otherwise. Now when you are confronted with it 
you ask permission of the man to again visit his house, and you get from 
that woman who has confessed you have ruined her a recantation and re- 
traction of the truth for your mere personal safety. That won't save you." 

At that interview he admitted with grief and sorrow the fact of his 
sexual relations with Mrs. Tilton. expressed some indignation that she 
had not told him that she had told her husband, and that in consequence 
of being in ignorance of that fact he had been walking upon a volcano — 
referring to what he had done in connection with Bowen and with refer- 
ence to Tilton's family. He said that lie had sympathized with Bowen, 
and had taken sides with him as against Tilton, in consequence of stories 
which were in circulation in regard to him, and especially of one specific 
case where he had been informed that Tilton had had improper relations 
with a woman whom he named, and to whom a letter from his wife will 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 317 

make a part of this statement, and had so stated to Bowen. And he 
told me that he would write to Bowen and withdraw those charges, and 
gave me the rough draft of a letter which he wrote and sent to Bowen, 
which letter is here produced, marked " C " : 

BEECHER TO BOWEN. 

Brooklyn, January 2, 1871. 
My Dear Mr. Bowen : — Since I saw you last Tuesday I have reason 
to think that the only cases of which I spoke to you in regard to Mr. 
Tilton were exaggerated in being reported to me, and I should be un- 
willing to have anything I said, though it was but little, weigh on your 
mind in a matter so important to his welfare. 1 am informed by one 
on whose judgment and integrity I greatly rely, and who has the means 
of forming an opinion better than any of us, that he knows the whole 

matter about Mrs. , and that the stories are not true, and that the 

same is the case with other stories. I do not wish any reply to this. I 
thought it only due to justice that I should say so much. Truly yours, 
(Signed) H. W. Bekcher. 

Mr. Beecher told me that Mrs. Beecher and himself, without knowing 
of the confession of Mrs. Tilton to her husband, had been expressing 
great sympathy towards Mrs. Tilton, and taking an active interest with 
her against her husband. I said : " Mr. Beecher, I want that recanta- 
tion ; I have come for it." " Well," said he, " what shall I do without 
it ? " I replied : " I don't know ; I can tell you what will happen with 
it." He asked : " "What will you do if I give it to you ? " I answered : 
" I will keep it as I keep the confession. If you act honorably, I will 
protect it with my life, as I would protect the other with my life. Mr. 
Tilton asked for that confession this morning, and I said : ' I will never 
give it to you; you shall not have it from my hands until I have ex- 
hausted every effort for peace.' " Mr. Beecher gave me back the paper, 
the original of which I now produce in Mrs. Tilton's handwriting, 
marked "D," as follows : 

MRS. TILTON'S RECANTATION. 

December 30, 1870. 

Wearied with importunity and weakened by sickness I gave a letter 
inculpating my friend Henry Ward Beecher under assurances that 
that would remove all difficulties between me and my husband. That 
letter I now revoke. I was persuaded to it— almost forced — when I was 
in a weakened state of mind. I regret it, and recall all its statements. 

(Signed) E. R. Tilton. 

I desire to say explicitly Mr. Beecher has never offered any improper 
solicitations, but has always treated me in a manner becoming a Chris- 
tian and a gentleman. (Signed) Elizabeth R. Tilton. 

Afterwards Mr. Tilton left with me another letter, dated the same 
night of the recantation, December 30, bearing on the same topic, to 
be kept with the papers, which was in his wife's handwriting. It is here 
produced and marked " E," as follows : 



318 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

MKS. TILTON's RETRACTION OF HER RECANTATION. 

December 30, 1870 — Midnight. 

My Dear Husband: — I desire to leave with you, before going to sleep, 
a statement that Mr. Henry Ward Beecher called upon me this evening-, 
asked ine if I would defend him against any accusation in a Council 
of Ministers, and I replied solemnly that I would in case the accuser 
was any other person than my husband. He (H. W. B.) dictated a 
letter, which I copied as my own, to be used by him as against any 
other accuser except my husband. This letter was designed to vindicate 
Mr. Beecher against all other persons save only yourself. I was ready- 
to give him this letter because he said with pain that my letter in your 
hands addressed to him, dated December 29, " had struck him dead, and 
ended his usefulness." 

You and I both are pledged to do our best to avoid publicity. God 
grant a speedy end to all further anxieties. Affectionately. 

(Signed) Elizabeth. 

When I went home with the recantation, I found Tilt on there, and 
showed it to him. He expressed his surprise and gratification that I 
should have been able to get it, and I then showed to him how very 
foolish it would have been in the morning to have proceeded angrily 
against Beecher. I made another appeal for peace, saying that, not- 
withstanding great difficulties appeared in the way, if they were properly 
dealt with they could be beaten out of the way. He expressed his wil- 
lingness and desire for peace. 

When I saw Beecher I made an agreement, at his request, to go and 
see him on Sunday, January 1. I went to his house in accordance with 
the engagement. He took me into his study, and then told me again 
of his great surprise that Elizabeth should have made the confession of 
his criminal commerce with her to her husband, without letting him 
(B.) know anything about it, making his destruction at any moment 
possible, and without warning to him. He expressed his great grief at 
this wrong which he had done as a minister, and friend to Theodore, and 
at his request I took pen and paper, and he dictated to me the following 
paper, all of which is in my handwriting except the words, "I have 
trusted this to Moulton in confidence," and the signature, which latter 
are in Mr. Beecher's. It is here produced and marked " F " : 

LETTER OF CONTRITION. 

Brooklyn, January 1, 1871. 

[In trust with F. D. Moulton.] 

My Dear Friend Moulton : — I ask through you Theodore Tilton's 
forgiveness, and I humble myself before him as I do before my God. 
He would have been a better man in my circumstances than I have 
been. I can ask nothing except that he will remember all the other 
hearts that would ache. I will not plead for myself. I even wish I 
were dead ; but others must live and suffer. 

I will die before any one but myself shall be implicated. All my 
thoughts are running towards my friends, towards the poor child lying 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 319 

there and praying with her folded hands. She is guiltless — sinned 
against; bearing the transgression of another. Her forgiveness I have. 
I humbly pray to God that be may put it into the heart of her husband 
to forgive me. 

I have trusted this to Moulton in confidence. 

(Signed) H. W. Beecher. 

This was intrusted to me in confidence, to be shown only to Tilton, 
which I did. It had reference to no other fact or act than the confession 
of sexual intercourse between Beecher and Mrs. Tilton, which he at that 
interview confessed, and denied not, but confessed. He also at other 
interviews subsequently held between us in relation to this unfortunate 
affair unqualifiedly confessed that he had been guilty of adultery with 
Mrs. Tilton, and always in a spirit of grief and sorrow at the enormity 
of the crime he had committed against Mr. Tilton's family. At such 
times he would speak with much feeling of the relation "he had sustained 
towards them as pastor, spiritual adviser, and trusted friend. His self- 
condemnation at the ruin he had wrought under such circumstances 
was full and complete, and at times he was so bowed down with grief in 
consequence of the wrong he had done that he threatened to put an end 
to his life. He also gave to me the letter the first draft of which, 
marked " A," is above given, in reference to which he said that Bowen 
had given it to him ; that he had told Bowen that Tilton must be crazy 
to write such a letter as that ; that he did not understand it, and that 
Bowen said to him, "I will be your friend in this matter." He then 
made a statement which Tilton had made to me at my house of the 
charge that Bowen had made to him (Tilton) ; said that Bowen had been 
very treacherous towards Tilton, as well as towards himself, because 
he (Beecher) had had a reconciliation with Bowen, of which he told me 
the terms, and that Bowen had never in his (Beecher's) presence spoken 
of or referred to any allegation of crime or wrong-doing on his part with 
any woman whatever. He gave me, in general terms, the reconciliation, 
and afterwards gave me two memoranda, which I here produce, which 
show the terms of the reconciliation. The first is in the handwriting of 
Bowen, containing five items, which Beecher assured me were the terms 
which Bowen claimed should be the basis of reconciliation. It is as fol- 
lows, and is marked " G " : 

bowen's TEEMS. 

First — Report and publish sermons and lecture-room talks. 

Second — New edition Plymouth Collection and Freeland's interest. 

Third— -Explanations to church. 

Fourth — Write me a letter. 

Fifth — Retract in every quarter what has been said to my injury. 

The second paper is a pencil memorandum of the reconciliation with 
Bowen in Beecher's handwriting, giving an account of the affair. It is 
marked " H," as follows : 



320 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

RECONCILIATION WITH BOWEN. 

About February, 1870, at a long interview at Mr. Freeland's house, 
for the purpose of having a full and final reconciliation between Bowen 
and Beecher, Mr. Bowen stated his grievances, which were all either of 
a business nature or of my treatment of him personally (as per memo- 
randum in his writing). 

After hours of conference everything was adjusted. We shook hands. 
We pledged each other to work henceforth without jar or break. I said 
to him : " Mr. Bowen. if you hear anything of me not in accordance 
with this agreement of harmony, do not let it rest. Come straight to 
me at once, and I will do the same by you." 

He agreed. In the lecture- room I stated that all our differences were 
over, and that we were friends again. This public recognition he was 
present and heard, and expressed himself as greatly pleased with. It 
was after all this that I asked Mr. Howard to help ine carry out this 
reconciliation, and to call on Mr. Bowen and to remove the little dif- 
ferences between them. 

Mr. Howard called, expressed his gratification. 

Then it was that without any provocation, he, Mr. Bowen, told Mr. 
Howard that this reconciliation did not include one matter, that he 
[Bowen) '* knew that about Mr. Beecher which if he should speak it 
would drive Mr. Beecher out of Brooklyn." Mr. Howard protested with 
horror against such a statement, saying: "Mr. Bowen, this is terrible. 
No man should make such a statement unless he has the most absolute 
evidence." To this Mr. Bowen replied that he had this evidence, and 
said, pointedly, that he (Howard) might go to Mr. Beecher, and that 
Mr. Beecher would never give his consent that he (Bowen) should tell 
Mr. Howard this secrcV' 

Mr. Bowen at no time had ever made known to Mr. B. what this secret 
was, and the hints which Mr. Beecher had had of it led him to think 
that it was another matter, and not the slander which he now finds it to 
be. 

In that interview Beecher was very earnest in his expression of regret 
at what had been done against Tilton in relation to his business connec- 
tion with Bowen, and besought me to do everything I could to save him 
from the destruction which would come upon him if the story of his 
(Beecher's) intercourse with Mrs. Tilton should be divulged. In com- 
pliance with the directions of Beecher, January 1, 1871, I took the 
paper marked "F," which he had dictated to me, to Tilton, detailed to 
him Beecher's expressions of regret and sorrow, spoke to him of his 
agony of mind, and again appealed to him to have the whole matter 
kept quiet, if for no other reason, for the sake of the children. To this 
Tilton assented. I found him writing the letter to Bowen of that date 
which I have before produced, marked " B." He told me also of the 
contracts he had with Bowen with a penalty, when he left the Indepen- 
dent, to be editor of the Brooklyn Union and special contributor to the 
Independent at a salary of one hundred dollars per week, with another 
salary of equal amount for his editorship of the Brooklyn Union and a 
portion of the profits. Copies of these contracts I cannot produce, be- 
cause both papers were delivered to Bowen after the arbitration of the 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 321 

controversy of which I am about to speak. These contracts provided 
that they could be terminated by mutual consent, or upon six months' 
notice, or upon the death of either party, or at once by the party who 
wished to break or annul them paying to the other the sum of twenty- 
five hundred dollars. Tilton insisted that that sum, with his arrears of 
salary, was justly due him, and that he should bring suit against Bowen 
unless he settled, and he gave me an authorization to settle his affairs 
with Bowen, which paper I gave to Mr. Bowen when I went down to 
treat with him, retaining this copy, marked "I": 



Brooklyn, January 2, 1871. 
Mr. H. C. Bowen: 

Sir : — I hereby authorize Mr. Francis D. Moulton to act in my behalf 
in full settlement with you of all my accounts growing out of my con- 
tracts for services to the Independent and the Brooklyn Daily Union. 
(Signed) Theodore Tilton. 

Acting in the interest of Beecher, I told Tilton that this controversy 
with Bowen, if possible, should be peacefully settled lest it might reopen 
the other matters relating to Beecher's conduct in Tilton's family and 
the charges made by Bowen against Beecher. To this Tilton assented, 
giving me the authorization above quoted. 

At my earliest convenience I called upon Bowen at his office upon 
this business, telling him that I wanted .him to settle with me, as I was 
authorized by Tilton by this letter (handing him the letter) to settle 
for the breaking of his contract with Tilton as contributor to the 
Independent and as editor of the Brooklyn Union. I also handed him 
an article written by Tilton for the Independent, which he (Tilton) 
claimed was in part performance of his contract, which article -was 
subsequently returned to Tilton by Bowen through me. Bowen said 
that he did not consider that he owed Tilton any money at all for break- 
ing the contracts— that he had terminated them, having, in his opinion, 
sufficient reasons for so doing. " Well," I said, " Mr. Bowen, your con- 
tracts are specific." He said he " knew they were, but they provided 
for arbitration in case of any differences between the parties." I re- 
plied, in substance, that the arbitration only referred to differences 
between the parties as to the articles to be published as editor and con- 
tributor by Tilton, and as to Bowen's conduct as publisher, and that 
there was a fixed sum as penalty for breach of the contracts. The inter- 
view terminated with his refusal to settle the claim I demanded, which 
refusal I reported to Tilton, advising him still not to sue Bowen. 

The following correspondence is with reference to my meeting Mr. 
Bowen on this business. The letter marked "Jl" is my note to Mr. 
Bowen, and his reply, marked "J 2": 
21 



322 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

MOULTON TO BOWEN. 

Brooklyn, January 9, 1871. 
Mr. Henry C. Bowen. 

Dear Sir : — Referring to a recent interview with you, 1 would state 
that in consequence of illness I have been detained at home, and as I 
deem it of great importance to the interests of all concerned in the 
affairs about which we talked that you and I should meet at an early 
moment, if you will call at my house, No. 143 Clinton street, I shall be 
glad to see you at any hour convenient to yourself to-morrow. Truly 
yours, (Signed) F. D. Moulton. 

BOWEX TO MOULTON. 

90 Willow Street, Brooklyn, January 10, 1871. 
Sir: — I am not very well myself, but will try to call ax your house 
Thursday evening at eight o'clock. I am engaged to-morrow evening. 
I can go this evening if you will inform me that it will be convenient 
for you to see me. Unless I learn from you to the contrary I will see 
you on Thursday evening. Very respectfully, 

(Signed) Henry C. Bowen. 

Mr. F. D. Moulton. 

In pursuance of this correspondence we met at my house and entered 
into negotiations about the settlement of the contract with Tilton. At 
that time, during the interview, I showed Bowen the letter of January 1 
of Tilton (which he — Tilton — had placed in my hands to use in accord- 
ance with«ny own discretion), heretofore given, marked " B." Bowen 
during the reading of the letter seemed to be much excited, and at only 
one point of the letter questioned the accuracy of its statements, which 
states as follows: "that alluding by name to a woman, now a widow, 
whose husband's death no doubt was hastened by his knowledge that 
Mr. Beecher had maintained with her an improper intimacy." To that 
he said, "I didn't make that allusion ; Mr. Tilton made it." 1 went on 
to the close of the letter and finished it, when Bowen said to me. " Has 
Tilton told Beecher the contents of this letter?" I replied, "Yes, he 
lias." Said he, "What shall I do ? What I said at that interview was 
said in confidence. We struck hands there, and pledgor! ourselves to 
God that no one there present would reveal anything there spoken." 
I said to him : "It would be an easy matter to confirm what you say 
or prove that what you say is false. Mr. Oliver Johnson was there, 
and I have submitted this letter to Mr. Johnson, in Mr. Tilton's pres- 
ence, and he tells me that there was no obligatory confidence imposed 
on any of the parties ooncerniner anything said at this interview, save a 
special pledge, mutually given, that nothing should be said concerning 
Mr. Beecher's demonstrations towards Mrs. Tilton. Mr. Johnson also 
says — and this confirms what you say in regard to one point, namely, 
that the allusion to the widow was made by Theodore Tilton, and that 
you said you had no doubt that her husband's death was caused by his 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 323 

knowledge of her improper intimacy with Mr. Beeeher. Quoting your 
language, he says that you said, ' I have no doubt about it whatever.' 
Mr. Johnson also says that your statements in regard to Beeeher were 
not intimations of his adulteries, but plain and straightforward charges 
of the same. He says that you said that you knew of four or five cases 
of Mr. Beecher's adulterous intercourse with women. Mr. Johnson 
says also that you at that interview plainly declared that Mr. Beeeher 
had confessed his guilt to you." I also said to him : " Mr. Tilton states 
that you said, ' I can't stand it any longer. You and I owe a duty to 
society in this matter. That man ought not to stay another w 7 eek in 
his pulpit. It isn't safe for our families to have him in this city.' " I 
also said to him : " Mr. Johnson also states that at the interview of 
December 26 at your house, Willow street, you voluntarily pledged 
your word to Mr. Johnson that you would take no further measures in 
regard to Mr. Tilton without consultation with him (Mr. Johnson), and 
that you had said substantially the same thing to him previously, 
during private conversations between you and him." 

I then said to Bowen that I thought he was a very treacherous man, 
and 'for this reason, that I knew he had had a reconciliation with 
Beeeher — or rather I was informed of it — which was perfected in the 
house of God, and that within forty-eight hours from that time he had 
avowed to Mr. Howard that he could, if he chose, drive Mr. Beeeher out 
of town. I told him further that I was also informed that, prior to that 
reconciliation, he had made no charge against Beecher's character to 
Beeeher, but only behind his back ; and I said : " Mr. Bowen, I have 
the points of settlement between you and Beeeher in your own hand- 
writing, and there is no reference to any charge of crime of any kind 
against Beeeher." Mr. Bowen made no denial of these assertions of 
mine, but seemed, on the contrary, abashed and dejected, and in reply 
to'my question, "What do you say to these charges which you have 
made against Beeeher ? " he declined to say anything about them, but 
repeated the question, " What can I do ? " I answered : " I am not your 
adviser ; I cannot dictate to you what course you should pursue ; but 
you have done great injustice to Mr. Tilton and to Mr. Beeeher, and 
you ought to take the earliest means of repairing the injury. I should 
think it would be but just for you to restore Tilton to the Independent, 
but I don't believe he would go back if you should offer it to him." 
His reply was : " How can I do that now ? " I told him I didn't know ; 
he must find a way to settle his own difficulties. He again expressed 
his willingness to arbitrate the question of money between himself and 
Tilton growing out of the contract. I told him that I would not arbi- 
trate ; that a plain provision of the contract provided that he should 
pay what I demanded, and he must fulfil it. Mr. Bowen rose to leave, 
and said before leaving, whenever I wanted to see him he would be 



324 THE TRUE HISTORY OP 

happy to come to my house and confer on this subject ; and he elid, on 
several subsequent occasions, visit me at my house whenever I sent for 
him to consult on this matter. The means I have of giving so accurately 
the conversation between myself and Bowen as to the conversations had 
with Tilton and Oliver Johnson are, that prior to my meeting with 
Bowen, as I told him, I had an interview with Oliver Johnson in the 
presence of Tilton, where the whole matter was discussed, and a memo- 
randum of Oliver Johnson's statement, in which he gave his recollection 
of the interview of December 26, when Tilton and Johnson were present, 
was taken down by Tilton in shorthand in my presence, and copied out 
at the time in Johnson's presence, which memorandum has been in my 
possession ever since, and from which I read each statement, one after 
the other, to Mr. Bowen. I here produce it, marked " K " : 

Oliver Johnson's statement. 

At the interview of December 20 (Willow street, No. 90) Mr. Bowen 
voluntarily pledged his word to Mr. Johnson that he (H. C. B.) would 
take no further measures in regard to Mr. Tilton without consultation 
with Mr. Johnson. Mr. Bowen likewise had said substantially the same 
thing to Mr. Johnson previously during private conversations between 
those two persons. 

There was no obligatory confidence imposed on any of the parties 
concerning anything said at this interview save a special pledge mutually 
given that nothing should be said concerning Mr. Beecher's demonstra- 
tions towards Mrs. Tilton. 

Mr. O. J. says that Mr. Bowen's statements in regard to H. W. B. 
were not intimations of H. W. B.'s adulteries, but plain and straight- 
forward charges of the same. H. C. B. stated that he knew four or five 
cases of Mr. B.'s adulterous intercourse with women. 

O. J. says that H. 0. B. at this interview plainly declared that H. W. 
B. had confessed his guilt to H. C. B. 

H. 0. B. — I cannot stand it any longer. You and I owe a duty to 
society in this matter. That man ought not to stay another week in his 
pulpit. It is not safe for our families to have him in this city. 

The allusion to the widow was made by T. T., and H. C. B. said he 
had no doubt that her husband's death was caused by his knowledge of 
her improper intimacy with H. W. B. "I have no doubt about it 
whatever." 

To make an end of the statement as to the controversy between Tilton 
and Bowen, I further state that various negotiations were had between 
Bowen and myself, which resulted finally in an arbitration in which H. 
B. Claflin, Charles Storrs and James Freeland were referees ; that there 
was very considerable delay arising from my own absence South in the 
early spring on account of sickness. Mr. Bowen's absence during the 
summer, and Tilton's absence during the fall and winter on his lecturing 
tour; so that the arbitration did not terminate until the 2d of April, 
1872. This arbitration was determined upon by me, and my determina- 
tion given to Mr. Claflin in the following note which I sent, marked 
"K2": 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 325 

MOULTON TO CLAFLIN. 

Brooklyn, April 1, 1872. 
My Dear Mr. Claflin : — After full consideration of all interests other 
than Theodore's, I have advised him to arbitrate on grounds which he 
will explain to you, and which I hope will accord with your judgment 
and kind wishes towards all concerned. Cordially yours, 

(Signed) Francis D. Moulton. 

Tilton and Bowen and myself appeared before the arbitrators, and all 
made statements. In Tilton's statement was included the letter marked 
"B," before given, which he had put into type, which fact influenced 
me to consent to the arbitration in order to do away with the necessity 
for its publication. After full hearing — nothing having been submitted 
to the arbitrators except the business differences of Tilton and Bowen — 
the arbitrators made an award that Mr. Bowen should pay Tilton the 
sum of seven thousand dollars, for which he (Mr. Bowen) drew his check 
upon the spot and the contracts were given up to him. 

After the above settlement a paper, which has since been called the 
" tripartite agreement," was signed by Bowen and Tilton. Beecher sign- 
ing it subsequently. The inducing cause to this arbitration was the fact 
that Tilton had commenced a suit against Bowen, and prepared an article 
for the Golden Age, in which he embodied* his letter (marked " B ") to 
Mr. Bowen and a statement of the circumstances. He submitted that 
article to me, and I begged him to withhold it from publication. I 
also brought Beecher and Tilton together, and Beecher added his en- 
treaties to mine. To prevent its publication and close the suit, which 
might work injury to Beecher and others, I agreed to submit Mr. Tilton's 
claim to arbitration, to which I had been invited before by Mr. Bowen, 
but which I had refused, as before stated. In this interview between 
Beecher, Tilton and myself, I said, " Perhaps we can settle the whole 
matter if I can see Mr. Claflin, for Claflin knows Bowen well, and under- 
stands the importance of all these interests." Beecher said he would 
send Claflin to me, and I might confer with him upon the matter. In 
consequence of this Mr. Claflin called on me and we conferred upon the 
matter, and subsequently the arbitration was agreed upon. At the con- 
clusion of the arbitration the parties signed the " tripartite covenant," 
which was drawn up (as I understand) by Mr. Samuel Wilkeson. It 
was first signed by Bowen. In the form in which it was first drawn it 
bound the parties to say nothing of any wrong done or offence com- 
mitted by Beecher, and fully exonerated him therefrom. After Bowen 
had signed it it was handed to Tilton to sign, and he refused. He was 
willing to sign an agreement never to repeat again the charges of Bowen, 
saying that if for no other reason, if the matter should thereafter ever 
come to light, it would appear that there had been something between 
Beecher and Mrs. Tilton, and it might be used as evidence to the in- 



326 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

jury of himself and family as well as of Beecher, and therefore it was not 
for the interest of either Tilton or Beecher to sign it in the form first 
proposed. No copy of that " tripartite covenant " was confided to me. 
Appended to this covenant and made a part of it was a copy of the 
proof-sheet article for the Golden Age, so that it might be known ex- 
actly to what scandal it referred. How that " tripartite covenant " 
came to be published I know not. As a part of that settlement it was 
arranged that Tilton should write a letter to Bowen to be published in 
the Independent, with certain comments to be made by Bowen. The 
original draft of these, in full recantation and withdrawal of all charges 
and matters of difference between Tilton and Bowen, is herewith pro- 
duced and marked " L " : 

RECONCILIATION OF TILTON AND BOWEN. 

Theodore Tilton. 
"We have received the following note from an old friend : 

Office of the Golden Age, 
(Original date blotted,) 

New York, April 3, 1872. 
Henry 0. Bowen, Esq. 

My Dear Sir : — In view of misapprehensions which I lately found 
existing among our mutual friends at the West, touching the severance 
of our relations in the Independent and the Brooklyn Union, I think it 
would be well, both for your sake and mine, if we should publicly 
say that, while our political and theological differences still exist, and 
will probably widen, yet that all other disagreements (so far as we ever 
had any) have been blotted out in reciprocal friendliness and good-will. 

Truly yours, 
(Signed) Theodore Tilton. 

It is so long since Mr. Tilton's pen has contributed to the Indepen- 
dent that we give to his brief note his old and familiar place at the head 
of these columns. While we never agreed with some of his radical 
opinions (and quite likely, as lie intimates, we never shall), yet we owe 
to his request as above printed the hearty response which his honest 
purposes, his manly character, and his unstained integrity elicit from 
all who know him well. The abuse and slanders heaped upon him by 
some unfriendly journals have never been countenanced by the Indepen- 
dent. Regretting his opposition to the present administration, we nev- 
ertheless wish abundant prosperity to the Golden Age and its editor. 

H. C. B. 

The above proposed card was subsequently and voluntarily changed 
by Mr. Bowen into a still stronger and more friendly notice of Mr. 
Tilton. 

After the tripartite covenant was signed it came to the knowledge of 
Beecher, as he informed me, that Bowen was still spreading scandals 
about him, at which he was angered and proposed to write Bowen a 
letter stating the points that had been settled in their reconciliation and 
agreement, and the reason why Mr. Bowen's mouth should be closed in 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 327 

regard to such slanders. I find among my papers a pencil and ink 
memorandum of the statements intended to be embodied in that letter, 
which was submitted to my judgment by Beecher. It is in his hand- 
writing, and is produced, marked " M." It reads as follows: 



I. That he allowed himself to listen to unfounded rumors. 

II. That he never brought them either (1) to me (2) nor in any proper 
manner to the church; (3) that lie only whispered them, and even that 
only when he had some business end in view. 

III. That he did not himself believe that anything had occurred which 
unfitted me for the utmost trust shown. 

(1) By continuing for twelve to fifteen years a conspicuous attendant 
at Plymouth Church. 

(2) By contracts with me as editor of the Independent. 

(3) By continued publications of my sermons, etc., making the privi- 
lege of doing so — even as late as the interview at Freeland's — one of 
these points of settlement. 

(4) By a settlement of all difficulties at Freeland's (and a reconcilia- 
tion which was to lead to work together), in which not a single hint of 
any personal immorality, but every item was business. 

IV. As a result of such agreement — 

(1) I was to resume my old familiarity at his house. 

(2) To write him a letter that he could give his family to show that I 
had restored confidence. 

(3) To endeavor to remove from him the coldness and frowns of the 
parish, as one who had injured me. 

(4) A card to be published, and which was published, giving him the 
right to put in Independent sermons and le<:ture-room talks, etc. 

(5) I was invited to go to Woodstock and be his guest, as I was at 
Grant's reception. 

V. Of the settlement by a committee whose record is with Claflin, I 
have nothing to say. I did not see Mr. B. during the whole process, nor 
do I remember to have spoken with him since. 

YI. Now the force of the statement that he did not himself believe 
that I had done anything immoral which should affect my standing as 
a man, a citizen, and a minister, illustrated by the foregoing facts, is 
demonstrated by his conduct when he did believe that Theodore Tilton 
committed immoralities, his dispossession of Independent, his ignomini- 
ous expulsion from B. U., his refusal to pay him the salary and forfeit 
of contract. 

As a part of this transaction, Beecher sent me the following note, 
marked " N " : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

Monday. 
My Dear Friend : — I called last evening as agreed, but you had 
stepped out. On the way to church last evening I met Claflin. He 
says B. denies any such treacherous whisperings, and is in a right state. 
I mentioned my proposed letter. He liked the idea. I read him the 
draft of it (in lecture-room). He drew back, and said better not send it. 
I asked him if B. had ever made him statement of the very bottom facts ; 
if there were any charges I did not know. He evaded and intimated 



328 THE TEUE HISTORY OF 

that if he had he hardly would be right in telling me. I think he would 
be right in telling you — ought to. 1 have not sent any note, and have 
destroyed that prepared. 

The real point to avoid is, to an appeal to church and then a council. 

It would be a conflagration, and give every possible chance lor parties, 
for hidings and evasions, and increase an hundred-fold this scandal, 
without healing anything. 

I shall see you as soon as I return. 

Meantime I confide everything to your wisdom, as I always have, and 
with such success hitherto that l have lull trust for future. 

Don't fail to see C. and have a full and confidential talk. Yours, 
ever. 

From the time of the tripartite covenant nothing occurred to disturb 
the relations between Beecher, Tilton, and Bowen, or either of them, so 
far as I know, until the publication in Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly 
of an elaborate story concerning the social relations between Beecher, 
Tilton, and Mrs. Tilton. After that publication appeared it again came 
to the knowledge of Beecher that Bowen was making declarations de- 
rogatory to his character. This was followed by the publication of the 
"tripartite covenant," which Beecher informed me was done by Mr. 
Samuel Wilkeson, and also that Beecher was not a party to its publica- 
tion nor knew anything about it. There afterwards appeared an account 
of an interview between Bowen, H. B. Claflin, and Mrs. Woodhull, pub- 
lished in the Brooklyn Eagle, in which an attempt was made to obtain 
from her any letters which she might have showing that Beecher was 
guilty of criminal conduct, which attempt failed. Whereupon Beecher 
addressed me the following note, which I here produce, marked "N 2" : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

I need to see you this evening any time till half-past ten. Can you 
make appointment ? Will you call at 124. or shall I ? At what hour ? 
1 send Claflin's letter. Keep it. Answer by telegraph. 

H. W. B. 

I shall take tea at Howard's, 74 Hicks, and should you call, let it be 
there. Or will I go round to your rooms. I want to show you a pro- 
posed card. 

I also produce a letter of Claflin to Beecher of June 28, 1873, which 
was enclosed with the above, marked " N 3 " : 

CLAFLIN TO BEECHER. 

New York, June 28, 1873. 
My Dear Mr. Beecher : — I have yours. It was distinctly understood 
that the call on Woodhull was entirely private and not to be reported. 
I told Bowen Woodhull had no letters from you of the least consequence 
to him or anybody else, and I was entirely satisfied after the interview 
that I was entirely right. I went there at Bowen's earnest solicitation, 
knowing it could not harm you and might satisfy him, as I think it did. 
It was "in bad faith to publish the meeting. AH present must have 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 329 

been disgusted at the utter lack of what Woodhull professed to have, 
but could not produce. Truly your friend, H. B. Claflin. 

P. S. — Wish you would call and see me if you pass the store. I am 
always in at about eleven o'clock A.M. H. B. C. 

Beecher, when we met in pursuance of his note, produced to me a 
memorandum of a card which he proposed to publish in the Eagle, and 
which he submitted to my judgment, and gave me leave to alter the same 
as I thought fit.. That paper is herewith produced, marked "N4": 

BEKCHER'S PxiOPOSED CARD. 

Brooklyn, Jane, 1873. 

I have seen in the morning papers that application has been made to 
Mrs. Victoria Woodhull for certain letters of mine supposed to. contain 
information respecting certain infamous stories against me. She has 
two business letters, one declining an invitation to a suffrage meeting 
and the other declining to give her assistance solicited. 

These, and all letters of mine in the hands of any other persons, they 
have my cordial consent to publish. I will only add in this connection 
that the stories and rumors which have for a time been circulated about 
me are grossly untrue, and I stamp them in general and in particular as 
utterly false. 

I saw the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle at his office, and after consul- 
tation with him the card was published as follows : 

To the Editor of the Brooklyn Eagle : 

Sir : — In a long and active life in Brooklyn it has rarely happened that 
the Eagle ami myself have been in accord on questions of common con- 
cern to our fellow-citizens. I am for this reason compelled to acknowl- 
edge the unsolicited confidence and regard of which the columns of the 
Eagle of late bear testimony. I have just returned to the city to learn 
that application has been made to [Mrs.] Victoria Woodhull for letters 
of mine supposed to contain information respecting certain infamous 
stories against me. [I have no objection to have the Eagle state, in any 
way it deems fit, that Mrs. Woodhull] or any other person or persons 
who may have letters of mine in their possession, have my cordial con- 
sent to publish them. In this connection [and at this time] I will only 
add that the stories and rumors which have, for some time past, been 
circulated about me are untrue, and I stamp them in general and in par- 
ticular as utterly [untrue]. 

Bespectfully, 
(Signed) Henry Ward Beecher. 

In order that the emendations made by myself and Mr. Kinsella may 
be observed at a glance, I have enclosed in brackets the words which 
are not in the original. It will be thus seen how much of this card was 
the composition of Mr. Beecher, and how much he relied upon the 
judgment of others in its preparation. 

I would have submitted this card to Mr. Beecher before publication, 
but he was absent. For obvious reasons I held myself excepted from 
this call for publication, as was well understood by Beecher. I know 
nothing further of the relations of Bowen and Beecher in this connection 



330 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

which is of importance to this inquiry. I have traced them thus far be- 
cause that controversy at each stage of it continually threatened the 
peaceful settlement of the trouble of Tilton and Beecher, an account of 
which I now resume. 

Another curious complication of the relations of the parties arose 
from the publication by Mrs. Woodhull of the story in her journal. It 
is a matter of public notoriety that Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker, the 
sister of Beecher, had espoused the cause of Mrs. Woodhull on the 
question of woman suffrage, and had been accused still further of adopt- 
ing her social tenets. 

Beecher's relations to Mrs. Tilton had been communicated to her. 
This had been made a subject of communication from Mrs. Hooker to 
her brother, and. after the publication by Mrs. Woodhull, Mrs. Hooker 
addressed the following note to her brother, which contains so full and 
clear an exposition of all the facts and circumstances that I need not 
add a word of explanation. I produce Mrs. Hooker's letter to Beecher 
under date of November 1, 1872, marked "N 5": 

MBS. HOOKER TO BEECHER. 

Hartford, November 1, 1872. 

Dear Brother : — In reply to your words " if you still believe in that 
woman," etc., let me say that from her personally I have never heard a 
word on this subject, and when, nearly a year ago, I heard that when 
here in this city she said she had expected you to introduce her at 
Stein way, I wrote her a most indignant and rebuking letter, to which 
she replied in a manner that astounded me by its calm assertion that 
she considered you as true a friend to her as I myself. 

I enclosed this letter to Mr. Tilton, asking him to show it to you if he 
thought best, and to write me what it all meant. He never replied nor 
returned the letter to me as I requested; but I have a copy of it at your 
service. In the month of February, after that, on returning from 
Washington, I went to Mrs. Stanton's to spend Sunday. At Jersey 
City I met Mrs. W., who had come on in the same train with me, it 
seemed, and who urged me in a hasty way to bring Mrs. Stanton over 
on Monday for a suffrage consultation as to spring convention. Re- 
membering her assertion of the friendship between you, and of her 
meeting you occasionally at Mr. Moulton's house (I think this is the 
name), I thought I would put this to test, and replied that if I could be 
sure of seeing you at the same time I would come. She promised to 
secure you if possible, and I fully meant to keep my appointment, but 
on Sunday I remembered an appointment at New Haven which I should 
miss if I stopped in New York, and so I passed by. dropping her a letter 
by the way. Curiously enough sister Catharine, who was staying at your 
house at this time, said to me here, casually, the latter of that same week : 
,; Belle, Henry went over to New York to see you last Monday, but 
couldn't find you." Of course my inference was that Mrs. W. either had 
power over you, or you were secretly friends. During that Sunday Mrs. 
Stanton told me precisely what Mr. Tilton had said to her, when in the 

rage of discovery he fled to the house of Mrs. , and before them 

both narrated the story of his own infidelities as confessed to his wife 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 331 

and of hers as confessed to him. She added that not long after she went 
to Mr. Moulton's and met you coming down the front steps, and on en- 
tering met Tilton and Moulton, who said : " We have just had Plymouth 
Church at our feet and here is his confession " — showing a manuscript. 
She added that Mrs. Tilton had made similar statements to Miss An- 
thonv. and I have since received from Miss A. a corroboration of this, 
although she refuses to give me particulars, being bound in confidence, 
she thinks. 

From that day to this I have carried a heavy load, you may be sure. I 
could not share it with my husband, because he was already overbur- 
dened and alarmingly affected brain-wise, but I resolved that if he went 
abroad, as he probably must, I would not go with him, leaving you alone 
as it were, to bear whatever might come of revelation. I withstood the 
entreaties of my husband to the last, and sent Mary in my stead, and at 
the last moment I confided to her all that I knew and felt and feared, 
that she might be prepared to sustain her father should trial overtake 
them. By reading the accompanying letters from them you will per- 
ceive that from outside evidence alone he had come to the conclusions 
which I reached only through the most reliable testimony that could 
well be furnished in any case and against every predisposition of my 
own soul. Fearing that they would hasten home to me and thus lose 
all the benefit of the journey (for, owing to this and other anxieties of 
business, John had grown worse rather than better up to that very 
time, though the air of the high Alps was beginning to promote sleep 
and restoration), I telegraphed by cable, "No trouble here — go to 
Italy," and by recent letters I am rejoiced to hear of them in Milan in 
comfortable health and spirits. From the day those letters came the 
matter has not been out of my thoughts an hour, it seems to me, and 
an unceasing prayer has ascended that I might be guided with wisdom 
and truth. But what is the truth I am further from understanding this 
morning than ever. The tale as published is essentially the same as told 
to me — in fact, it is impossible but that Mr. Tilton is the authority for 
it, since I recognize a verisimilitude, and, as I understand it. Mrs. T. 
was the sole revelator. The only reply I made to Mrs. Stanton was that 
if true you had a philosophy of the relation of the senses so far ahead 
of the times that you dared not announce it. though you consented to 
live by it. That this was in my judgment wrong, and God would bring 
all secret things to light in his own time and fashion, and I could only 
wait. I added that I had come to see that human laws were an imper- 
tinence, but could get no further, though I could see glimpses of a possi- 
ble new science of life that at present was revolting to my feelings and 
my judgment ; that I should keep myself open to conviction, however, 
and should converse with men, and especially women, on the whole sub- 
ject, and as fast as I knew the truth I should stand by it. with no 
attempt at concealment. I think that Dr. Channing probably agrees 
with you in theory, but he had the courage to announce his con- 
victions before acting upon them. He refused intercourse with an 
uncongenial wife for a long time, and then left her and married a 
woman whom he still loves, leaving a darling daughter with her mother, 
and to-day he pays photographers to keep him supplied with her pictures 
as often as they can be procured. I send you the article he wrote when. 
abandoned by all their friends, he and his wife went to the West and 
stayed for years. Crushed by calumny and abuse, to-day they are 
esteemed more highly than ever, and he is in positions of public trust 
in Providence. 



332 THE TEUE HISTORY OF 

You will perceive my situation, and, by all that I have suffered and 
am willing- to suffer lor jour sake, I beg you to confide to me the whole 
truth. Then I can help you as no one else in the world can The 
moment that I can know this matter as God knows it he will help von 
and me to bring everlasting good out of this seeming evil If 1 could 
say truthfully that I believe this story to be a fabrication of Mr and 
Mrs. rilton's imposed upon a credulous woman— mere medium, whose 
susceptibility to impressions from spirits in the flesh and out of it is to 
be taken into account always— the whole thing dies. But if it is 
essentially true, there is but one honorable way to meet it in mv judg- 
ment, and the precise method occurred to me in bed this morning and 
I was about writing you to suggest it when your letter came. 

I will write you a sisterly letter, expressing my deep conviction that 
this whole subject needs the most earnest and chaste discussion— that 
my own mind has long been occupied with it, but is still in doubt on 
many points— that I have observed for years that your reading and 
thinking has been profound on this and kindred subjects, and now the 
time has come for you to give the world, through your own paper, the 
conclusions you have reached and the reasons therefor. If you choose 
I will then reply to each letter, giving the woman's view (for there is 
surely a man's and a woman's side to this beyond everywhere else), and 
by this means attention will be diverted from personalities and concen- 
trated on social philosophy— the one subject that now ought to occupy 
all thinking minds. 

It seems to me that God has been preparing me for this work, and 
you also, for years and years. I send you a reply ] wrote to Dr. Todd 
long ago, and which 1 could never get published wit li out mv mime 
(which, for the sake of my daughters, I wished to withhold), although 
Godkin. of the Nation, Holbrook, of the Herald of Health. Ward, of the 
Independent, and every mother to whom .1 have read it. all told me it 
was the best thing ever written on the subject, and the men said they 

would publish it if they dared, while Mrs.' urged me to give my 

name and publish, and said she would rather have written it than any- 
thing else of its length in the world, and if it were hers she would print 
it without hesitation. I send also a copy of a letter I wrote John Stuart 
Mill on his sending me an early copy of his " Subjection of Women." 
and his reply. I am sure that nearly all the thinking men and women 
are somewhere near you, and will rally to your support if you are bold, 
frank, and absolutely truthful in stating your convictions. Mrs. Bur- 
leigh told Dr. Channing she was ready to avow her belief in social free- 
dom when the time came ; she was weary now, and glad of a reprieve, 
but should stand true to her convictions when she must. My own con- 
viction is that the one radical mistake you have made is in supposing 
that you are so much ahead of your time, and in daring to attempt to 
lead when you have anything to conceal. Do not, I pray you, deceive 
yourself with the hope that the love of your church, or any other love, 
human or divine, can compensate the loss of absolute truthfulness to 
your own mental convictions. I have not told you the half 1 have suf- 
fered since February; but you can imagine, knowing what my husband 
is to me. that it was no common love I have for you and for the truth, 
and for all mankind, women as well as men, when I decided to nearly 
break his heart, already lacerated by the course I had been compelled 
to pursue, by sending him away to die, perhaps, without me at his 
side. 

I wish you would come here in the evening some time (to the Burton 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 333 

cottage), or I will meet you anywhere in New York you appoint, and at 
any time. Ever yours, Belle. 

Read the letters from John and Mary in the order I have placed them. 
I will send these now, and the other documents 1 have mentioned 
another day, waiting till 1 know whether you will meet me. 

On the 3d of the same month Mrs. Hooker addressed a letter to her 
brother, the Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, which I produce, marked 4, N 6 " : 

MRS. HOOKER TO REV. THOMAS K. BEECHER. 

[Please return this letter to me when you have done with it.] 

Hartford, Sunday, November 3, 1872. 

Dear Brother Tom : — The blow has fallen, and I hope you are better 
prepared for it than you might have been but for our interview. I 
wrote H. a single line last week thus, " Can I help you ? " and here is 
his reply, " If you still believe in that woman you cannot help me. If 
you think of her as I do you can perhaps, though 1 do not need much 
help. I tread the falsehoods into the dirt from whence they spring, and 
go on my way rejoicing. My people are thus far heroic, and would give 
their lives for me. Their love and confidence would make me willing to 
bear far more than I have. Meantime the Lord has a pavilion in which 
he hides me until the storm be overpast. I abide in peace, committing 
myself to Him who gave himself for me. I trust 'you give neither coun- 
tenance nor credence to the abominable coinage that has been put afloat. 
The specks of truth are mere spangles upon a garment of falsehood. 
The truth itself is made to lie. Thank you for love and truth and 
silence, but think of the barbarity of dragging & poor, dear child of a 
woman into this slough. Yours truly." 

Now, Tom, so far as I can see, it is he who lias dragged the dear child 
into the slough and left her there, and who is now sending another 
woman to prison who is innocent of all -crime but a fanaticism for the 
truth as revealed to her, and I, by my silence, am consenting unto her 
death. 

Read the little note she sent me long ago, when, in a burst of enthu- 
siasm over a public letter of hers which seemed wonderful to me, I told 
her how it affected me, and mark its prophetic words : 

New York, August 8, 1871. 
My Dear, Dear Friend :— I was never more happy in all my life than 
I am this morning, and made so by you whom I have learned to love so 
much. From you, from whom I had expected censure, I receive the 
first deep, pure words of approval and love. I know my course has 
often been contrary to your wishes, and it has been my greatest grief to 
know that it was so, since you have so nobly been my defender. But all 
the time I knew it was not -I for whom you spoke, but all womanhood, 
and I was the more proud of you that your love was general and not 
personal. I am often compelled to do things from which my sensitive 
soul shrinks, and for which I endure the censure of most of my friends. 
But I obey a Power which knows better than they or I can know, and 
which has never left me stranded and without hope. I should be a faithless 
servant indeed were I to falter now when required to do what I cannot 
fully understand, yet in the issue of which I have full faith. None of 
the scenes in which I have enacted a part were what I would have sel- 
fishly chosen for my own happiness. I love my home, my children, my 



334 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

husband, and could live a sanctified life with them and never desire con- 
tact witli the wide world. But such is not to be my mission. I know 
what is to come, though I cannot yet divulge it. My daily prayer is 
that Heaven may vouchsafe me strength to meet everything which I 
know must be encountered and overcome. My heart is, however too 
lull to write you all I wish. 1 see the near approach of the grandest 
revelation the world has yet known, and for the part you shall play in it 
thousands will rise up and call you blessed. It was not for nothing that 
you and 1 met so singularly. Let us watch and pray, that we faint not 
by the wayside before we reach the consummation. We shall then look 
back with exceeding great joy to all we have been called upon to suffer 
tor the sake of a cause more holy than has yet come upon earth. A°-ain 
1 bless you for your letter. Affectionately and faithfully yours, 

Victoria 0. Woodhull. 

Oh, my dear brother, I fear the awful struggle to live according to 
law has wrought an absolute demoralization as to truthfulness, and so 
he can talk about " spangles on a garment of falsehood," when the gar- 
ment is truth and the specks arc the falsehood. 

His first letter tome was so different from this. I read it to you, but 
will copy it, lest you have forgotten its character: 

April 25, 1872. 
My Bear Belle: — I was sorry when I met you at Bridgeport not to 
have had longer talk with you about the meeting in May. I do not in- 
tend to make any speeches on any topic during anniversary week. 
Indeed. 1 shall be out of town. I do not want you to take any ground 
this year except upon suffrage. You know my sympathy with you. 
Probably you and I are nearer together than any of our family. I can- 
not give reason now. I am clear; still, you will follow your own judg- 
ment. I thank you for your letter. Of some things I neither talk, nor 
will I be talked with. For love and sympathy I am deeply thankful. 
The only help that can be grateful to me or useful is silence and a 
silencing influence on all others. A day may come for converse. It is 
not now. Living or dead, my dear sister Belle, love me, and do not talk 
about me or suffer others to in your presence. God love and keep you. 
God keep us all. Your loving brother, H. W. B. 

The underscoring is his own. and when I read in that horrible story 
that he begged a few hours' notice, that he might kill himself, my mind 
flew back to this sentence, which suggested suicide to me the moment I 
read it : " Living or dead, my dear sister Belle, love me," and I believed 
even that. 

Now. Tom. can't you go to brother Edward at once and give him these 
letters of mine, and tell him what I told you; and when you have coun- 
selled together as brothers should, counsel me also, and come to me if 
you can. It looks as if he hoped to buy my silence with my love. At 
present, of course. I shall keep silence, but truth is dearer than all things 
else, and if he will not speak it in some way I cannot always stand as 
consenting to a lie. " God help us all." 

Yours in love, Belle. 

If you can't come to me, send Edward. I am utterly alone, and my 
heart aches for that woman even as for my own flesh and blood. I 
do not understand her, but I know her to be pure and unselfish and 
absolutely driven by some power foreign to herself to these strange 



# THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 335 

utterances, "which are always in behalf of freedom, purity — truth, as she 
understands it — always to befriend the poor and outcast, and bring low 
only the proud, the hypocrites in high places. The word about meeting 
at Mrs. Phelps's house I have added to the copy. If you see Henry tell 
him of this. 

The reply to this letter by the Rev. Thomas K. Beecher to his sister 
is as follows, and needs but a single remark — the thought of a good man 
as to the value of testimony in this case. I refer to the last sentence of 
the postscript. This is produced, marked " N 7 " : 

EEV. THOS. K. BEECHER TO HIS SISTER. 

Elmira, November 5, 1872. 

Dear Belle : — To allow the Devil himself to be crushed for speaking 
the truth is unspeakably cowardly and contemptible. I respect, as at 
present advised, Mrs. Woodhull, while I abhor her philosophy. She 
only carries out Henry's philosophy, against which I recorded my pro- 
test twenty years ago, and parted (lovingly and achingly) from him, 
saying "We cannot work together." He has drifted, and 1 have hard- 
ened like a crystal till I am sharp-cornered and exacting. I cannot help 
him except by prayer. I cannot help him through Edward. In my 
judgment Henry is following his slippery doctrines of expediency, and, 
in his cry of progress and the nobleness of human nature, has sacrificed 
clear, exact, ideal integrity. Hands off, until he is down, and then my 
pulpit, my home, my church, and my purse and heart are at his service. 
Of the two, Woodhull is my hero, and Henry my coward, as at present 
advised. But I protest against the whole batch and all its belongings. 
I was not anti-slavery ; I am not anti-family. But, as I wrote years ago, 
whenever I assault slavery because of its abominations. I shall assail 
the church, the sjate, the family, and all other institutions of selfish 
usage. 

I return the papers. You cannot help Henry. You must be true to 
Woodhull. I am out of the circle as yet, and am glad of it. When the 
storm-line includes me I shall suffer as a Christian, saying : " Cease ye 
from man." 

Don't write to me. Follow the truth, and when you need me cry out. 
Yours, lovingly, (Signed) Tom. 

P. S. — I am so overworked and hurried that I see upon review that 
my letter sounds hard — because of its senlentiousness. But believe me, 
dear Belle, that T see and suffer with you. You are in a tight place. 
But having chosen your principles I can only counsel you to be true and 
take the consequences. For years, you know, I have been apart from 
all of you except in love. I think you all in the wrong as to anthropology 
and social science. But I honor and love them who suffer for convic- 
tion's sake. My turn to suffer will come in due time. In this world all 
Christians shall suffer tribulation. So eat, sleep, pray, take good aim 
and shoot, and when the ache comes say even hereunto were we called. 
But I repeat — You can't help Henry at present. 

P. S. — I unseal my letter to enclose print and add : You have no 
proof as yet of any offence on Henry's part. Your testimony would be 
allowed in no court. Tilton, wife, Moulton and Co. are witnesses. Even 
Mrs. Stanton can only declare hearsay. So if you move, remember that 
you are standing on uncertain information, and we shall not probably 



336 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

ever get the facts, and I'm glad of it. If Mr. and Mrs. Tilton are 
brought into court nothing will be revealed. Perjury for good reason is 
with advanced thinkers no sin. 

It will be observed in the letter of Mrs. Hooker that she speaks of 
having refused to go to Europe with her husband, and that she remained 
at home in order to protect her brother in this emergency of his life. 

A letter came into my hands with the others from Mr. Hooker to his 
wife, under date of Florence, Italy, November 3, 1871, which tends to 
show that all this matter had been discussed between Mr. Hooker and 
his wife long before the publication by Mrs. Woodhull. I extract so 
much from the letter as refers to this subject. The remainder is a 
kindly communication of an absent husband to a loved wife, about 
wholly independent matters which have nothing to do with this contro- 
versy. It is produced, marked " N 8 " : 

MR. HOOKER TO HIS WIFE. 

Florence. Sunday, November 3, 1872. 
Mr Precious Wife : — I hope you were not pained by what I wrote 
on Friday about the II. YV. 13. matter. I am getting much more at 
peace about the matter, but I cannot look upon it in any other light, 
and it is a relief to ine to speak my mind right out about it and then let 
it rest. I could not have been easy till I had sworn a little. The only 
mitigation of the concealment of the thing that I can think of is this — 
and it seems to me that some excuse, or at least explanation, may be 
found here — viz. : that a consideration of the happiness of both Mr. T. 
and his wife required it, or seemed to, and the very possible further fact 
that he preferred to disclose it, but took the advice of a few of his lead- 
ing friends in the church, and was overruled by therm Jhey agreeing to 
take the responsibility of the concealment. This would take off some- 
what from the hypocrisy of the thing, but leaves the original crime as 
open to condemnation as ever. But enough of this. Only let me re- 
quest you to keep me informed of all that occurs, and do not rely upon 
my getting the news from the papers. I see by an extract from the 
Boston Advertiser that Mrs. W. has employed two Boston lawyers (it 
gives their names) to bring suit against the Republican and Woman s 
Journal, so that it looks as if the exposure is near at hand. I want to 
say one word more, however. Can you not let the report get out after 
the H. matter becomes public, without being exactly responsible for it, 
that you have kept up friendship with Mrs. W. in the hope of influenc- 
ing her not to publish the story, you having learned its truth — and that 
is substantially the fact as I have understood it — and that you gave up 
going to Europe with me so as to be at home and comfort H. when the 
truth came out, as you expected it to do in the course of the summer ? 
This will give the appearance of self-sacrifice to your affiliation with her, 
and will explain your not coming abroad with me — a fact which has a 
very unwife-like look. I know that you will otherwise be regarded as 
holding Mrs. W.'s views, and that we shall be regarded as living in 
some discord, and probably (by many people) as practising her princi- 
ples. It would be a great relief to me to have your relations to Mrs. W. 
explained in this way, so creditable to your heart. There is not half the 
untruth in it that there has been all along in my pretended approval 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL, 337 

of Mrs. Woodhull's course, and yet people think me an honest man. 1 
have lied enough about that to ruin the character of an average man, 
and have probably damaged myself by it . . . 

After Beecher had seen these letters of his sister, Mrs. Hooker, 
he came to me, in trouble and alarm, and handed me all the letters, 
together with one under the date of November 27, which I herewith 
produce, with the enclosure cut from the Hartford Times, to which it 
alludes. It is marked li N 9 " : 

MRS. HOOKER TO BEECHER. 

Hartford, Wednesday, 27, 1872. 

Dear Brother — Read the enclosed, clipped from the Times of this 
city last evening. [See enclosure below.] I can endure no longer. I 
must see you and persuade you to write a paper which I will read, going 
alone to your pulpit, and taking sole charge of the services. I shall 
leave here on 8 a. m. train Friday morning, and unless you meet me at 

Forty-second street station I shall go to Mrs. ? s house, opposite 

Young Men's Christian Association, No. — Twenty-third street, where 

I shall hope to see you during the day. Mrs. kindly said to me, 

when last in New York, " My daughter and I are now widows, living 
quietly in our pleasant home, and I want you to come there, without 
warning, whenever you are in New York, unless you have other friends 
whom you prefer to visit." 

So I shall go as if on a shopping trip, and stay as long as it seems 
best. 

I would prefer going to Mrs. Tilton's to anywhere else, but I hesitate 
to ask her to receive me. 

1 feel sure, however, that words from her should go into that paper, 
and with her consent I could write as one commissioned from on high. 

Do not fail me, I pray you ; meet me at noon on Friday as you hope 
to meet your own mother in heaven. In her name I beseech you, and I 
will take no denial. Ever yours in love unspeakable. 

(Signed) Belle. 

[Enclosure mentioned in above letter.] 

BEECHER AND MRS. TILTON. 

" Eli Perkins," of the New York Commercial, a prominent Republican 
paper, has this to say : 

" Nast's very boldness — his terrible aggressiveness — is what chal- 
lenges admiration and makes Harper's Weekly a success. 

" When I asked him if he didn't think it a great undertaking to attack 
Mr. Greeley, he said : 

" ' Yes ; but I knew he was an old humbug. I knew I was right, and 
I knew right would win in the end. I was almost alone, too. v The 
people were fooled with Greeley, as they are fooled with Beecher, and 
he will tumble further than Greeley yet.' 

" We had a talk about Beecher and Tilton. and putting this with other 
conversations with personal friends of Mr. Tilton, and with newspaper 
men in New York. I am satisfied that a terrible downfall surely awaits 
the one who has erred and conceals it." 
22 



338 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Beecher then informed me of his apprehension that his sister, in her 
anxiety that he should do his duty in presenting this truth as she under- 
stood it, and in protecting Mrs. Woodhull from the consequences of 
having published the truth, from which she was then suffering, would 
go into his pulpit and insist upon declaring that the Woodhull publica- 
tion was substantially true ; and he desired me to do what in me lay to 
prevent such a disaster. I suggested to him that he should see Mrs. 
Hooker, speak to her kindly, and exhort her not to take this course, and 
that Tilton should see her and so far shake her confidence in the truth 
of the story as to induce her to doubt whether she would be safe in 
making the statement public. In this course Beecher agreed, and such 
arguments and inducements were brought to bear upon Mrs. Hooker as 
were in the power of all three of us, to prevent her from doing that 
which would have certainly brought on an exposure of the whole busi- 
ness. During the consultation between Beecher and myself as to the 
means of meeting Mrs. Hooker's intentions, no suggestion was ever 
made on the part of Beecher that his sister was then or had been at any 
other time insane. 

All these letters I received from Beecher, and they are those to which 
he alludes, in his communication of the 4th instant, as the letters of his 
sister and brother delivered to me, and which I did not believe that I 
could honorably give him up, because I thought— and I submit to the 
committee, I was right in thinking— that they form a part of this con- 
troversy, and were not, as he therein alleged, simply given to my keep- 
ing as part of his other papers, which he could not keep safely on account 
of his own carelessness in preserving documents. 

Beecher was exceedingly anxious that Tilton should repudiate the 
statement published by Woodhull, and denounce her for its publication, 
and he drew up, upon my memorandum book, the form of a card to be 
published by Tilton, over his signature, and asked me to submit it to 
him for that purpose, which I here produce marked " N 10 " : 

beecher's proposed card for tilton. 

In an unguarded enthusiasm I hoped well and much of one who has 
proved utterly unprincipled. I shall never again notice her stories, and 
now utterly repudiate her statements made concerning me and mine. 

Beecher told me to say to Tilton, substantially : "Theodore may for 
his own purpose, if he choose, say that all his misfortune has come 
upon him on account of his dismissal from the Union and the Indepen- 
dent, and on account of the offence which I committed against him ; he 
may take the position against me and Bowen that he does ; yet the fact 
is, that his advocacy of Mrs. Woodhull and her theories has done him 
the injury which prevents his rising. Now, in order to get support 
from me and from Plymouth Church, and in order to obtain the sym- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 339 

pathy of the whole community, he must publish this card ; and unless 
he does it he cannot rise." He also said the same thing to Tilton in 
my presence. To this Tilton answered in substance to Beecher : " You 
know why I sought Mrs. Woodhull's acquaintance. It was to save my 
family and yours from the consequences of your acts, the facts about 
which had become known to her. They have now been published, and 
I will not denounce that woman to save you from the consequences of 
what you yourself have done." 

To resume : After I had carried to Mr. Tilton the paper of apology 
which had reference to Beecher's adultery, and had received assurances 
that all between Tilton and Beecher should be kept quiet, I immediately 
conveyed that information to Beecher. He was profuse in his profes- 
sions of thankfulness and gratitude to me for what he said were my ex- 
ertions in his behalf. Soon after that I was taken sick, and while on 
my sick-bed, on the 7th of February, I received the following letter 
from Beecher, marked " " : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

February 7, 1871. 

My Dear Mr. Moulton:— I am glad to send you a book which you 
will relish, or which a man on a sick-bed ought to relish. I wish I had 
more like it, and that I could send you one every day, not as a repay- 
ment of your great kindness to me— for that can never be repaid, not 
even by love, which I give you freely. 

Many, many friends has God raised up to me ; but to no one of them 
has he ever given the opportunity and the wisdom so to serve me as you 
have. My trust in you is implicit. You have also proved yourself 
Theodore's friend and Elizabeth's. Does God look down from heaven on 
three unhappy creatures that more need a friend than these ? 

Is it not an intimation of God' s intent of mercy to all, that each one 
of these has in you a tried and proved friend ? But only in you are we 
three united. Would to God, who orders all hearts, that by your kind 
mediation Theodore, Elizabeth and I could be made friends again. 
Theodore will have the hardest task in such a case ; but has he not 
proved himself capable of the noblest things? 

I wonder if Elizabeth knows how generously he has carried himself 
towards me. Of course, I can never speak with her again, except with 
his permission, and I do not know that even then it would be best. My 
earnest longing is to see her in the full sympathy of her nature at rest 
in him, and to see him once more 1 rusting her, and loving her with even 
a better than the old love. I am always sad in such thoughts. Is there 
any way out of this night ? May not a day-star arise ? 

Truly yours always, with trust and love, 

(Signed) Henry "Ward Beecher. 

On the same day there was conveyed to me from Beecher a request to 
Tilton that Beecher might write to Mrs. Tilton. because all parties had 
then come to the conclusion that there should be no communication be- 
tween Beecher and Mrs. Tilton or Beecher and Tilton, except with my 
knowledge and consent ; and I had exacted a promise from Beecher that he 



340 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

would not communicate with Mrs. Tilton, or allow her to communicate 
with him, unless I saw the communication, which promise, I believe, 
was, on his part, faithfully kept, but, as I soon found, was not on the 
part of Mrs. Tilton. 

Permission was given to Beeeher to write to Mrs. Tilton, and the fol- 
lowing- is his letter, here produced, marked " P " : 

BEECHER TO MRS. TILTON. 

Brooklyn, February 7, 1871. 
My Dear Mrs. Tilton : — When I saw you last 1 did not expect ever 
to see you again, or to be alive many days. God was kinder to me than 
were my own thoughts. The friend whom God sent to me, Mr. Moul- 
ton, has proved, above all friends that I ever had, able and willing to 
help me in this terrible emergency of my life. His hand it was that 
tied up the storm that was ready to burst upon our head. I am not the 
less disposed to trust him from finding that he has your welfare most 
deeply and tenderly at heart. You have no friend (Theodore excepted) 
who has it in his power to serve you so vitally, and who will do it 
with so much delicacy and honor. 1 beseech of you. if my wishes have 
yet any influence, let my deliberate judgment in this matter weigh with 
you. It does my sore heart good to see in Mr. Moulton an unfeigned 
respect and honor for you. It would kill me if he thought otherwise. 
He will be as true a friend to your honor and happiness as a brother 
could be to a sister's. In him we have a common ground. You and I 
may meet in him. The past is ended. But is there no future? — no 
wiser, higher, holier future? May not this friend stand as a priest in the 
new sanctuary of reconciliation and mediate and bless you, Theodore, 
and my most unhappy self? Do not let my earnestness "fail of its end; 
you believe in my judgment. I have put myself wholly and gladly "in 
Monlton's hands, and there I must meet you. This is sent with Theo- 
dore's consent, but he has not read it. Will you return it to me by his 
hands ? 1 am very earnest in this wish for all our sakes, as such a let- 
ter ought not to be subject to even a chance of miscarriage. Your 
unhappy friend, 

(Signed) H. W. Beecher. 

This was a letter of commendation, so that Mrs. Tilton might trust 
me, as between her and her husband, as fully as Beecher did. In the 
meanwhile Mr. Beecher's friends were continually annoying him and 
writing him about Tilton and the rumors that were afloat with regard to 
both, and on the 13th of February Beecher received the following letter 
from his nephew. F. B. Perkins, which he (Beecher) handed me, with 
a draft of a reply, on the 23d of the same February, which he sent with- 
out showing me again, and upon that draft I made the following note. I 
herewith produce these documents, marked " Q," " R," and " S " respec- 
tively : 

PERKINS TO BEECHER. 

Box 44. Station D, \ 
New York. February 13. 1871. j 
My Dear Uncle : — After some consideration I decide to inform you 
of a matter concerning you. Tilton has been justifying or excusing his 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 341 

recent intrigues with women by alleging that you have been detected in 
the like adulteries, the same having been hushed up out of considera- 
tion for the parties. This I know. 

You lnay, of course, do what you like with this letter. I suppose 
such talk dies quickest unanswered. I hav~ thought it best to let you 
know what is being said about you, and by whom, however ; for, whether 
you act in the matter or not, it has been displeasing to me to suppose 
such things done without your knowledge. I have thought other peo- 
ple base, but Theodore Tilton has in this action dived into the very sub- 
cellar of the very backhouse of infamy. In case you should choose to 
let him know of this. I am responsible, and don't seek any concealment. 

Very truly yours, 
To Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. (Signed) F. B. Perkins. 

P. S. — I can't say Tilton said " adulteries." He was referring to his 

late intrigues with Mrs. and others, however he may have described 

them. What I am informed of is the excuse by implicating you in 
" similar " affairs. (Signed) F. B. P. 

BEECHER TO PERKINS. 

February 23, 1871. 

My Dear Fred : — Whatever Mr. Tilton formerly said against me — 
and I know the substance of it — he haswilhdravjn,smd frankly confessed 
that he had been misled by the statements of one who, when confronted, 
backed down from his charges. 

In some sense I am in part to blame for his indignation. For I lent 
a credulous ear to reports about him, which I have reason to believe 
were exaggerated or wholly false. After a full conference and explana- 
tion, there remains between us no misunderstanding, but mutual good- 
will and reconciliation have taken the place of exasperation. Of course 
I shall not chase after rumors that will soon run themselves out of 
breath if left alone. If my friends will put their foot silently on any 
coal or hot embers, and crush them out. without talking, the miserable 
lies will be as dead in New York in a little time as they are in Brooklyn. 
But I do not any the less thank you for your affectionate solicitude, and 
for your loyalty to my good name. I should have replied curlier, but 
your letter came when I was out of town. I had to go out again imme- 
diately. If the papers do not meddle, this slander will fall still-born — 
dead as Julius Ccesar. If a sensation should be got up. of course there 
are enough bitter enemies to fan the matter and create annoyance, 
though no final damage. I am your affectionate uncle, 

(Signed) H. W. B. 

NOTE BY MOULTON IN RELATION TO THE ABOVE. 

H. W. Beecher agreed to hold this letter over for consideration, but 
sent it before seeing me again. I at first approved of the letter, but 
finally concluded to consult wilh T. T., who offered a substitute, the 
substance of which will be found in pencil on copy of H. W. B.'s reply 
to P. 

The following is a copy of the substitute referred to : 

An enemy of mine, as I now learn, poisoned the mind of Theodore 
Tilton by telling him stories concerning me. T. T. being angered 
against me because I had quoted similar stories against him, which I 



342 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

had heard from the same party, retaliated. Theodore and I, through a 
mutual friend, were brought together, and found upon mutual explana- 
tions that both were the victims of the same slander. 

No further correspondence was received from Perkins in this connec- 
tion to my knowledge, except the following note to Tilton herewith pro- 
duced and marked " T " : 

PERKINS TO TILTON. 

May 20, 1871. 
Mr. Tilton : — If there had not been others by, I would have said to 
you at meeting you this noon what I say now: Our acquaintance is 
at an end ; and if we meet again you will please not recognize me. 

(Signed) F. B. Perkins. 

Meanwhile Mrs. Morse, the mother-in-law of Mr. Tilton, who was from 
time to time an inmate of his family in Livingston street, had, as I was 
informed both by Mr. and Mrs. Tilton, learned from her daughter the 
criminal relationship heretofore existing between Beecher and herself, 
and who could not understand why that matter had been settled, and 
who had not been told how it had been adjusted, and who had had a 
most bitter quarrel with Tilton, accusing him of not having so carried 
his affairs as to keep what fortune he had, and who had called upon 
Beecher about the relations between Tilton and Mrs. Tilton, and who 
had, as Beecher had informed me, filled the minds of Mrs. Beecher and 
himself with stories of Tilton's infidelity and improper conduct to his 
wife, wrote the following letter to Beecher, under date of January 27, 
1871, which he delivered to me the next day, as appears by my memoran- 
dum thereon, together with the draft of an answer which he said he pro- 
posed to send to Mrs. Morse. Her letter is herewith produced, marked 
" U," and Mr. Beecher's draft of reply, marked "V," and are as fol- 
lows : 

MRS. MORSE TO MR. BEECHER. 

[Received January 27, 1871 ; received from H. W. B. January 28, 
1871.] 

Mr. Brroher : — As you have not seen fit to pay any attention to the 
request I left at your house now over two weeks since, I will take this 
method to inform you of the state of things in Livingston street. The re- 
mark you made to me at your own door was an enigma at the time, and 
every day adds to the mystery. " Mrs. Beecher has adopted the child." 
" What child ? " I asked. You replied, " Elizabeth." 

Now I ask what earthly sense was there in that remark ? Neither 
Mrs. B.. yourself nor I can have done anything to ameliorate her condi- 
tion. She has been for the last three weeks with one very indifferent 

girl. T. has sent with the others away, leaving my sick and 

distracted child to care for all four children night and day, without fire 
in the furnace or anything like comfort or nourisment [sic] in the 
house. She has not seen any one. He says, " She is mourning for her 
sin." If this be so, one twenty-four hours under his shot, I think, is 
enough to atone for a lifelong sin, however henious [sic]. I know that 
any change in his affairs would bring more trouble upon her and more 



THE BKOOKLYN SCAXDAL. 343 

suffering. I did not think for a moment when I asked Mrs. B. as to 
your call there, supposing she knew it, of course, as she said you would 
not go there without her. 

I was inocent [sicj of making any misunderstanding if there was any ; 
you say keep quiet. I have ail though her married life dune so, and we 
now see our eror [sic]. It has brought liim to destruction, made me 
utterly miserable, turned me from a comforiable home, and brought his 
own family to beggary. I don't believe if his honest debts were paid he 
would have enough to buy their breackfast [sicj. This she could endure 
and thrive under, but the publicity he has given to this recent and most 
crushing of all trouble is what's taken the life out of her. I know of 
twelve persons whom he has told, and they in turn have told others. I 
had thought we had as much as we could live under from his neglect 
and ungovernable temper. But this is the deathblow to us both, and I 
doubt not Florence has hers. Do you know when I hear of your crack- 
ing your jokes from Sunday to Sunday, and think of the misery you 
have brought upon us, I think with the Psalmist : u There is no 
God." Admitting all he says to be the invention of his half-drunken 
brain, still the effect upon us is the same, for all he's told believe it. 
Now he's nothing to do, he makes a target of her night and day. I am 
driven to this extremity: to pray for her release from all suffering by 
God's taking her himself, for if there's a heaven I know she'll go there. 

The last time she was in this house she said : " Here I feel I have no 
home, but on the other side I know I shall be more than welcome." Oh, 
my precious child ! how my heart bleeds over you in thinking of your 
sufferings. Can you do anything in the matter ? 

Must she live in this suffering condition of mind and body with no 
aleviation ? [sic] 

You or any one else who advises her to live with him when he is doing 
all he can to kill her by slow torture, is anything but a friend. 

I don't know if you can understand a sentence I've written, but I'm re- 
lieved somewhat by writing. The children are kept from me, and I have 
not seen my dieing [sic] child but once since her return from this house. 

I thought the least you could do was to put your name to a paper to 
help to reinstate my brother (in the Custom House). Elizabeth was as 
disappointed as myself. He is still without employment, with a sick 
wife and five children to feed, behind with rent, and everything else 
behindhand. 

If your wife has adopted Lib [sic] or you sympathize with her, I pray 
you do something for her relief before it is too late. He swears so soon 
as her breath leaves her body; he will make this whole thing public, and 
this prospect, I think, is one thing which keeps her living. I know of no 
other. She's without nourisment [sic] for one in her state, and in 
want — actual want. They would both deny it, no doubt, but it's true. 

BEECHER TO MRS. MORSE. 
Mrs. Judge Morse : 

My Dear Madam : — I should be very sorry to have you think I had 
no interest in your troubles. My course towards you "hitherto should 
satisfy you that I have sympathized with your distress. But Mrs. 
Beechcr and I, after full consideration, are of one mind — that, under 
present circumstances, the greatest kindness to 3'ou and to all will be, in 
so far as we are concerned, to leave to time the rectification of all 
the wrongs, whether they prove real or imaginary. 



344 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

It will be observed that in the letter of Mrs. Morse she says Tilton 

has sent with the others away. I purposely omit the name of 

this young girl. There was a reason why it was desirable that she 
should be away from Brooklyn. That reason, as given me by Mr. 
and Mrs. Tilton, was this: She had overheard conversations by them 
concerning Mrs. Tilton's criminal intimacy with Beecher, and she had 
reported these conversations to several friends of the family. Being 
young, and not knowing the consequences of her prattling, it seemed 
proper, for the safety of the two families, that she should be sent to a 
distance to school, which was accordingly done. She was put at a board- 
ing school at the West, and the expenses of her stay there were privately 
paid through me by Beecher, to whom I had stated the difficulty of 
having the girl remain in Brooklyn; and he agreed with us that it was 
best that she should be removed, and offered to be at the cost of her 
schooling. The bills were sent to me from time to time as they became 
due — a part of them through Mrs. Tilton. Previous to her going away 
she wrote the following letters to Mrs. Tilton, marked "W" and " X," 
and they were sent to me by Mrs. T. as part of these transactions : 



TO MRS. TILTON. 

Brooklyn, January 10,1871. 
My Deaf. Mrs. Tilton : — I want to tell you something 1 . Your mother, 
Mrs. Morse, has repeatedly attempted to hire me by offering me dresses 
and presents, to go to certain persons and tell them stories injurious to 
the character of your husband. I have been persuaded that, the kind 
attentions shown me by Mr. Tilton for years were dishonorable demon- 
strations. I never at the time thought that Mr. Tilton's caresses were 
for such a purpose. I do not want to be made use of by Mrs. Morse 
or any one else to bring trouble on my two best friends, you and your 
husband. Bye-by, 

These notes are in Mrs. Tilton's handwriting and on the same paper 
used by her in correspondence with me. 

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. 

January 12. 
My Dear Mrs. Tilton: — The story that Mr. Tilton once lilted me 
from my bed and carried me screaming to his own and attempted to 
violate my person is a wicked lie. Yours truly, 

While this young lady was at school she did inform a friend of Mrs. 
Tilton, Mrs. P.. of the stories of the family relations. These stories 
were written to Brooklyn, and came to the knowledge of my friends, 
creating an impression upon their minds unfavorable to Mr. Tilton, and 
might possibly lead to the reopening of the scandal. I, therefore, took 
pains to trace them back, and found that they came from Mrs. P., to 
whom the school-girl had told them. I, therefore, called upon Tilton 
and asked if these stories could not be stopped. Soon afterwards he 
produced to me a letter dated the 8th .of November, 1872, written by 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL, 345 

Mrs. Tilton, with a note to me on the back thereof, to disabuse Mrs. P.*s 
mind as to this girl's disclosures. The letter is here produced, marked 
"Y": 

MRS. TILTON TO MRS. P. 

Brooklyn, November 8, 1872. 

My Dear Mrs. P. : — I come to you in this fearful extremity, burdened 
by my misfortunes, to claim your promised sympathy and love. . . . 

I have mistakenly felt obliged to deceive these two years, that my 

husband had made false accusations against me which he never has to 
her or any one. 

In order that he may not appear on his defence, thus adding the 
terrible exposure of a lawsuit, will you implore silence on her part 
against any indignation which she may feel against him ; for the one 
only ray of light and hope in this midnight gloom is his entire sym- 
pathy and co-operation in my behalf. 

A word from you to Mr. D will change any unfriendly spirit 

which dear mother may have given him against my husband. 

You know I have no mother's heart, that will look charitably upon 
all, save you. Affectionately, your child, 

(Signed) Elizabeth. 

Of course you will destroy this letter. 

Also, I produce — out of the order of time — a letter of Mrs. Tilton. 
marked ' ; Y 2," sent to me a year afterwards for money for the purpose 
of paying this young person's school expenses, and also a statement of 
accounts and letter of transmission, and note acknowledging receipt for 
quarter ending June, 1871, from the principal of that school, marked 
"Z 1" and "Z 2." All these sums were paid by Beecher, and I for- 
warded the money to settle them through Mrs. Tilton, or sent the 
money directly to the principal of the school at her request : 

MRS. TILTON TO MOULTOX. 

Tuesday. January 18, 1872. 

Dear Francis :— Be kind enough to send me $50 for . I want 

to enclose it in to-morrow's mail. Yours gratefully, 

(Signed) Elizabeth. 

Statement of Account. 

Female Seminary. 

MlS3 

To j) r . 

For boarding $76.50 

For tuition, primary class 10.80 

For washing 793 

For fire (2 montbs) 4*00 

For music (double lessons), $36 ; use piano, $4.50 40^50 

For advanced items: 

Books and stationery $4-14 

Music ' . 5.10 

Physician and medicine , 6.00 

Seat in church 1,00 16.24 

Amount $155.27 

June. 1871. 



316 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Jane 8, 1871. 

Mrs. Tilton : — I send you with this a statement of Miss 's bill 

for the past half school year. 

is doing very well in her studies, and is quite a favorite with us. 

Sometimes she is not very well, but I think, on the whole, her health is 
improving. 

Could you not come and make us a visit, and bring Mr. Tilton with 
you ? A little rest would do you both good. 

Very respectfully yours, 

is making very good progress in music, and in some of her com- 
mon branches, as arithmetic, geography, and spelling. 

Seminary, December 18, 1873. 

F. D. Moulton, Esq. 

Dear Sir: — Yours containing check for $200 in full for Miss 's 

school-bill is received. This pays all her indebtedness to this date. 

Very truly yours, 

Beecher was very anxious to ascertain through me the exact condi- 
tion of Tilton's feelings towards him, and how fur the reconciliation was 
real, and to get a statement in writing that would seem to free him 
(Beecher) from imputation thereafter. I more than once applied to 
Tilton to get a statement of his feelings towards Beecher, and received 
from him, on the 7th of February, 1871, the following letter, which I 
produce, marked "AA" : 

TILTON TO MOULTON. 

Brooklyn, February 7, 1871. 

My Very Dear Friend : — Pn several conversations with me, you have 
asked about my feelings toward Mr. Beecher, and yesterday you said the 
time had come wlien you would like to receive from me an expression 
of them in writing. I say, therefore, very cheerfully, that,, notwith- 
standing the great suffering which he has caused to Elizabeth and 
myself, I bear him no malice, shall do him no wrong, shall discounte- 
nance every project (by whomsoever proposed) for any exposure of his 
secret to the public, and (if I know myself at all) shall endeavor to act 
towards Mr. Beecher as I would have him in similar circumstances act 
towards me. 

I ought to add that your own good offices in this case have led me to 
a higher moral feeling than I might otherwise have reached. 
Ever yours affectionately, 
(Signed) Theodore Tilton. 

To Frank Moulton. 

From that time everything was quiet. Nothing occurred to mar the 
harmony existing between Tilton and Beecher, or the kindly relations 
between Tilton and Mrs. Tilton, during the summer of 1871, except idle 
gossip which floated about the city of Brooklyn, and sometimes was 
hinted at in the newspapers, but which received no support in any facts 
known to the gossiper or the writer, or through any communication of 
Mr. or Mrs. Tilton or Mr. Beecher. And I received no letters from 
Beecher alluding to this subject upon any topic until his return, on the 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 347 

30th September, from his vacation, showing that in fact the settlement 
was enabling- him to regain his health and spirits. I produce this note, 
marked "BB " : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

Saturday, September 30, 1871. 

My Dear Friend : — I feel bad not to meet you. My heart warms to 
you, and you might have known that I should be here, if you loved me 
as much as I do you. Well, it's an inconstant world ! Soberly, I should 
be glad to have you see how hearty I am, ready for work, and hoping 
for a bright year. 

I have literally done nothing for three months, but have " gone to 
grass." Things seem almost strange to come back among men and see 
business going on in earnest. 

I will be here on Monday at ten a. m. I am, my dear Frank, truly 
and gratefully yours, (Signed) Henry Ward Beecher. 

Taking advantage of this lull in the controversy it may be as con- 
venient here as anywhere to state the relations of Mrs. Tilton to the 
matter and her acts towards the several parties. I shall be pardoned if 
I do it with care, because my statement, unhappily for us both, must be 
diametrically opposite to one published as hers. I had been on terms 
very familiar, visiting at Mr. Tilton's house. I had seen and known Mrs. 
Tilton well and kindly on my part, and I believed wholly so on hers, and, 
as I have before stated, I had never known or suspected or seen any 
exhibition of inharmony between her and her husband during those 
many familiar visits, and of course I had no suspicion of infidelity upon 
the part of either towards the other. The first intimation of it which 
came to me was in the exhibition of her original confession, of which I 
have before spoken. The first time I saw that confession was on the 
30th of December, 1870. The first communication I had from Mrs. 
Tilton after I had read her confession on the Friday evening, as before 
stated, was on the next morning, the 31st of December, 1870, the date 
being fixed by the fact cited in her letter showing that she gave her re- 
traction to Beecher on the evening previous. The letter from her is as 
follows, marked " CO " : 

MRS. TILTON TO MOULTON". 

Saturday Morning. 
My Dear Friend Frank: — I want you to do me the greatest possi- 
ble favor. My letter which you have, and the one 1 gave Mr. Beecher 
at his dictation last evening, ought both to be destroyed. 

Please bring both to me and I will burn them. Show this note to 
Theodore and Mr. Beecher. They will see the propriety of this request. 

Yours truly, 
(Signed) E. R. Tilton. 

I could not of course accede to this request of Mrs. Tilton, because I 
had pledged myself to Beecher that her retraction on the one side, and 
her confession to Tilton on the other — which are the papers she refers 



348 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

to as "my letter which you have, and the one I gave Mr. Beecher" — 
should not be given up, but should be held for the protection of either 
as against the other. 

I learned in my interview with Beecher on the 1st day of January, 
1871. that he had been told by his wife and others that Mrs. Tilton 
desired a separation from her husband on account of his supposed infi- 
delities to her, and that Mrs. Tilton had applied to Mrs. Beecher for 
advice upon that subject. This being the first I had heard of any. 
asserted infidelity of Tilton to his marriage vows, either the next day 
or second day after I asked Mrs. lilton if it were so, and if she had 
ever desired a separation from her husband on that or any other account, 
wishing to assure myself of the facts upon which I was to act as media- 
tor and arbitrator between the parties. She stated to me that she had 
not desired a separation from her husband, but that application had been 
made to Mr. and Mrs. Beecher through her mother, upon her own 
responsibility, to bring it about, and on the 4th day of January she sent 
me the following letter, which, although dated January 4, 1870, was 
actually written January 4, 1871, and dated 1870, as is a common enough 
mistake by most persons at the beginning of a new year. But it bears 
internal evidence of the time of its date, and also I know that I received 
it at that time, it being impossible that it should have been a year pre- 
vious. I produce it, marked " I) D " : 



MES. TILTON TO MOULTON. 

174 Livings 
Brooklyn, January 4, 1870 ( 



174 Livingston Street, 1 



Mr. Francis D. Moulton : 

My Dear Friend: — In regard to your question whether I have ever 
sought a separation from my husband, I indignantly deny that such teas 
ever the fact, as I have denied it a hundred times before. The story that 
I wanted a separation was a deliberate falsehood, coined by my poor 
mother, who said she would bear the responsibility of this and other 
statements she might make and communicated to my husband's enemy, 
Mrs. H. W, Beecher, and by her communicated to Mr. Bowen. I feel 
outraged by the whole proceeding, and am now suffering in consequence 
more than I am able to bear. I am yours, very truly, 

(Signed) Eliz. R. Tilton. 

As bearing upon this topic of her husband's infidelity and her desire 
for separation, I produce another letter dated. January 13, 1871, written 
by Mrs. Tilton, and addressed to the person whose name I have hereto- 
fore and still suppress, as the one with whom Bowen had alleged an 
improper connection with Tilton, and because of which improper con- 
nection Beecher had been informed Mrs. Tilton was unhappy and desired 
the separation. It is marked " EE " : 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 349 

MRS. TILTOX TO . 

174 Livingston Street, ) 
Brooklyn, January 13, lbTl. j 
My Dear Friend and Sister : — I was made very glad by your letter, 
for youi love to me is most grateful, and for which I actually hunger. 
You, lL:e me, have loved and been loved, and can say with Mrs. Brown- 
ing, 

'• Well enough 1 think we've fared, 
My heart and I." 

But I find in you an element to which I respond ; when or how, I am 
not philosopher" enough of the human mind to understand. I cannot 
reason — only feel. 

I wrote to you a reply on the morning of my sickness, and tinged with 
fears of approaching disaster, so that when mail day arrived I was safely 
over my sufferings, with a fair prospect of returning health. I destroyed 
it lest its morbid tone might shadow your spirit. 1 am now around my 
house again, doing very poorly what J want to do well. All these am- 
bitions are failures, you know, darling, and when, in your last letter to 
Theodore — those good, true letters — you tell indirectly of your life with 
your parents, I caught and felt the self-sacrifice, admired and sincerely 
appreciated your rare qualities of heart and mind. I am a more demon- 
strative and enthusiastic lover of G<>d manifested in his children than 
you will believe, and my memories of you fill me with admiration and 
delight. I have caught up your card-picture, which we have, in such 
moments, and kissed it again and again, praying with tears for God's 
blessing to follow you. and to perfect in us three the beautiful promise 

of our nature. But, my sweet and dear , I realize in these months 

of our acquaintance how almost impossible it is to bring out these blos- 
soms of our heart's growth — God's gifts to us — to human eyes. Our 
pearls and flowers are caught up literally by vulgar and base minds that 
surround us on every side, and so destroyed or abused that we know 
them no longer as our own, and thus God is made our only hope. 

My dear, dear sister, do not let us disappoint each other. I expect 
much from you — you do of me. Not in the sense of draining or weari- 
ness to body or spirit, but trust and faith in human hearts. Does it not 
exist between us ? I believe it ! My husband lias suffered much with 
me in a cruel conspiracy made by my poor suffering: mother — with an 
energy worthy of a better cause — to divorce us by sayimr that J was 
seeking it because of Theodore's infidelity, making her feeling mine. 

These slanders have been sown broadcast. I am quoted everywhere 
as the author of them. Coming in this form and way to Mr. Bowen, 
they caused his immediate dismission from both the Independent and 
Union. Suffering thus both of us so unjustly — (I knew nothing of these 
plans) — anxiety night and day brought on my miscarriage: a disap- 
pointment I have never before known — a love babe it promised, you 

know. I have had sorrow alnrnst beyond human capacity dear . 

It is my mother ! That will explain volumes to your filial heart. Theo- 
dore has many secret enemies. T find, besides my mother, but with a 
faithfulness renewed and strengthened by experience we will, by silence, 
time, and patience, be victorious over them all. My faith and hope are 
very briarht, now that T am off the sick-bed. and dear Frank Moulton is 
a friend indeed. (Hp is mana^ine: the case with Mr. Bowen.) "We have 
weathered the storm, and. I believe, without harm to our Best. "Let 



350 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

not your heart be troubled," dear sweet— I love you. Be assured of it. 
I wish I could come to you. I would help you in the care of your loved 
ones, for that I can do. '• My heart bounds towards all." Then your 
spirit would be free to write and think. 

But hereunto I am not called. My spirit is willing. My dear chil- 
dren are all well. Floy, on her return at the holiday vacation, found me 
sick, and we concluded to keep her with us, and she has entered the 
Packer. Our household has indeed been sadly tossed about and the 
children suffer with the parents ; but the end has come, and I write that 
you may have joy and not grief, for that has past ! I am glad you love 
Alice. I have kissed her for you many times. I will teach all my dar- 
lings to love you and welcome your home-coming. Ralph is a fine, 
beautiful boy, and to be our only baby — very precious therefore. 
Carroll is visiting Theodore's parents at Keyport. I hope your mother 
is now better and that you have reached the sunshine. Our spirits can- 
not thrive in Nature's gloom. Give much love to your parents. I am 
yours, faithfully and fondly, 

(Signed) Sister Elizabeth. 

This letter requires a word of explanation. It will be observed that 
in the course of the correspondence between Bowen and Beecher there 
had been claimed infidelities on the part of Tilton w T ith a certain lady 
whose name is not disclosed, although well known to all the parties, and 
much of the accusations against Tilton connected him with that lady, 
and it was averred that they came from his wife. The above letter was 
written to that lady long after the accusations had been made against 
Tilton, and after they had been communicated to his wife, and I bring 
it in here as bearing on the question whether Mrs. Tilton desired a 
separation from her husband, as had been alleged, on account of his in- 
fidelities with this lady. 

I have already stated that I had, as a necessary precaution to the 
peace of the family and the parties interested, interdicted all the parties 
from having communication with each other — except the husband and 
wife — unless that communication was known to me, and the letters sent 
through me or shown to me. Mr. Tilton and Mr. Beecher, as I have 
before stated, both faithfully complied with their promise in that regard, 
so far as I know. I was away sick in the spring of 1871, as before 
stated, and went to Florida. Soon after my return Beecher placed in 
my hands an unsigned letter from Mrs. Tilton, in her handwriting, un- 
dated, but marked in his handwriting, "Received March 8, 1871." I 
here produce it, marked " FF " : 

MRS. TILTON TO BEECHER. 

Wednesday. 
My Dear Friend: — Does your heart bound toward all as it used ? 
So does mine ! I am myself again. I did not dare to tell you till I was 
sure ; but the bird has sung in my heart these four weeks, and he has 
covenanted with me never again to leave. " Spring has come." Be- 
cause I thought it would gladden you to know this, and not to trouble 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 351 

or embarrass you in any way, I now write. Of course I should like to 
share with you my joy ; but can wait for the Beyond ! 

When dear Frank says I may once again go to old Plymouth, I will 
thank the dear Father. 

Such a communication from Mrs. Tilton to her pastor, under the cir- 
cumstances and her promise, seemed to me to be a breach of good faith. 
But desirous to have the peace kept, and hoping, if unanswered, it might 
not be repeated, I did not show it to Tilton, or inform him of its ex- 
istence. 

On Friday, April 21, 1871, Mr. Beecher received another letter, of that 
date, unsigned, from Mrs. Tilton, which he gave to me. It is here pro- 
duced, marked " GO," as follows : 

MRS. TILTON TO BEECHER. 

Friday, April 21, 1871. 
Mr. Beecher :— As Mr. Moulton has returned, will you use your in- 
fluence to have the papers in his possession destroyed? My heart 
bleeds night and day at the injustice of their existence. 

As I could not comply with this request, for reasons before stated, I 
did not show this letter to Tilton, nor did I call Mrs. Tilton's attention 
to it. 

On the 3d of May Mr. Beecher handed me still another letter, un- 
signed, but in Mrs. Tilton's handwriting, of that date, w T hich is here 
produced, marked " HH " : 

MRS. TILTON TO BEECHER. 

Brooklyn, May 3, 1871. 
Mr. Beecher : — My future either for lifa or death would be happier 
could I but feel that you forgave while you forget me. In all the sad 
complications of the past year my endeavor was to entirely keep from 
you all suffering ; to bear myself alone, leaving you forever ignorant of 
it. My weapons were love, a large untiring generosity, and nest-hiding ! 
That I failed utterly we both know. But now I ask forgiveness. 

The contents of this letter were so remarkable that I queried within 
my own mind whether I ought not to show it to Tilton ; but as I was 
assured by Beecher, and verily believed, and now believe, that they were 
unanswered by him, I thought it best to retain it in my own possession, as 
I have done until now. But from the hour of its reception what remained 
of faith in Mrs. Tilton's character for truth or propriety of conduct was 
wholly lost, and from that time forth I had no thought or care for her 
reputation only so far as it affected that of her children. 

After this I do not know that anything occurred between myself and 
Mrs. Tilton of pertinence to this inquiry, or more than the ordinary 
courtesies or civilities when I called at her house, and I received no 
other communication from her until shortly before the question of the 



352 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

arbitration of the business between Bowen and Tilton was determined 
upon. I had learned that Mrs. Tilton had been making declarations 
which were sullying the reputation of her husband, and giving it to be 
understood that her home was not a happy one, because of the want of 
religious sympathy between herself and her husband, and because he 
did not accompany her to church as regularly and as often as she 
thought he ought to do, and she thought it would be well for the chil- 
dren to do, and sometimes speaking of her unhappiness, without de- 
fining specially the cause, thus leaving for the busybodies and inter- 
meddlers to infer causes of unhappiness which she did not state. I 
thought it my duty to the parties to caution her in that regard, and I 
said to her that I thought she ought not, in the presence of others, to 
upbraid her husband with their differences in religious feeling or opinions, 
and that it was not well for her to make any statement which should 
show her home unhappy, or that she was unhappy in it, because it 
might lead to such inquiries as might break it up, as well as the settle- 
ment, which she was so desirous to maintain for the sake of both fami- 
lies — Mrs. Beccher's and her own. 

This conversation drew from her the following letter, marked " II." 

MRS. TILTON TO MOULTON. 

Sunday Morning, February 11, 1872. 

My Dear Frtend Francis : — All the week I have sought opportunity 
to write you. but as I cannot work in the car as Theodore does, and the 
time at our stopping places must be necessarily given to rest, eating, 
and sight-seeing, say nothing of lecture-going, I have failed to come to 
you before. 

It was given to you to reveal to me last Sabbath evening two things 
(for which God bless you abundantly with his peace) : First, the truth 
that until then I had never seen or felt, namely, whenever I remembered 
myself in conversing with others to the shadowing of Theodore I became 
his enemy ! And the second truth was that J hindered the reconstruc- 
tion more than any one else. 

Whenever I become convinced I know I am immovable. Henceforth 
silence has locked ray lips, and the key is cast into the depths ! Theo. 
need fear me no longer, for I would be the enemy of no one. 

I have not been equal to the great work of the past year. All I have 
done is to cause the utter misery of those I love best — my mother, hus- 
band. Mr. B., and my dear children ! 

But how greatly I prize your counsel and criticisms you will never 
know. You do not at all terrify me ; only convince, and I bless you. 

Pardon this hasty line, which I'm sure you'll do, since you forgive me 
so much else. Good-night. Affectionately, 

(Signed) Elizabeth. 

After the signing of the "tripartite covenant," April 2, 1872, Tilton 
desired that I should return him the paper containing his wife's confes- 
sion, in order, as he said, to relieve her anxiety as to its possibly fall- 
ing into wrong hands, and she was very desirous that this paper should 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 353 

be destroyed. As I held it solely for her protection, and under pledge 
to him, I gave it to him, and he told me afterward that he gave it into 
her hands, and that she destroyed it. She also confirmed this state- 
ment. 

Some time after that — it is impossible for me to fix the date precisely 
— I learned from Beecher that Mrs. Tilton had told him that when she 
made her confession to her husband of her infidelity with him (Beecher) 
her husband had made* a like confession to her of his own infidelities 
with several other women. This being an entirely new statement of 
fact to me, and never having heard Mrs. Tilton, in all my conversation? 
with her, although she had admitted freely her own sexual intercourse 
with Beecher, make any claims that her husband had confessed his 
infidelity, or that he had been unfaithful to her, I was considerably sur- 
prised at this intimation made at so late a period, and I brought it to 
the attention of Tilton, in the form of a very strong criticism of his 
course towards me, that he had kept back so important a fact, which 
might have made a great difference as to the course that ought to be 
taken. Tilton promptly, and with much feeling, denied that he had 
ever made any such confession, or that his wife ever claimed that he 
had, and desired me to see Mrs. Tilton. and satisfy myself upon that 
point ; and he went immediately with me to his house, that I might see 
Mrs. Tilton before he should have the opportunity to see her, after he 
had learned the alleged fact. We went to the house together and found 
her in the back parlor. On our way to the house, Tilton said to me: 
" Frank, what is the use of my trying to keep the family together when 
this sort of thing is being all the time said against me ? You are all the 
time telling me that I must keep the peace, and forget and forgive, 
while these stories are being circulated to my prejudice." On arriving 
at the house I asked Mrs. Tilton to step into the front parlor, where we 
two were alone. I then put the question to her: "Elizabeth, did you 
tell Mr. Beecher that when you made your confession to your husband 
of your infidelity with Beecher, your husband at the same time made a 
confession to you of his own infidelity with other women ? " I said, " I 
want to know if this is true, for my own satisfaction." She answered : 
" Yes." I then stepped with her into the back parlor, where her hus- 
band was waiting, and I said to him: "Your wife says that she did tell 
Beecher that you confessed your infidelity with other women, at the 
time she made her confession to you." Elizabeth immediately said : 
" "Why, no, I didn't tell you so. I could not have understood your ques- 
tion, because it isn't true that Theodore ever made any such confession, 
and I didn't state it to Mr. Beecher, because it is not true." 

I was very much shocked and surprised at the denial, but of course 
could say nothing more, and did say nothing more upon that subject, 
and left and went home. The next morning I received the following 
23 



354 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

letter from Mrs. Tilton, without date, so that I am unable to give the 
exact date of this transaction ; but I know it was after the tripartite 
covenant. The letter is here produced, and marked " JJ " : 

MRS. TILTON TO MOULTON. 

Dear Francis: — I did tell you two falsehoods at your last visit. At 
first I entirely misunderstood your question, thinking you had reference 
to the interview at your house, the day before. But when I intelligently 
replied to you, I replied falsely. I will now put myself on record 
truthfully. 

I told Mr. B. that at the time of my confession T. had made similar 
confessions to me of himself, but no developments as to persons. AVhen 
you then asked, for your own satisfaction, "Was it so?" I told ray 
second lie. After you had left I said to T., "You know I was obliged 
to lie to Frank, and I now say, rather than make others suffer as / now 
do, I must lie ; for it is a physical impossibility for me to tell the 
truth." 

Yet I do think, Francis, had not T.'a angry, troubled face been before 
me, I would have told you the truth. 

I am a perfect coward in his presence, not from any fault of his, per- 
haps, but from long years of timidity. 

I implore you, as this is a side issue, to be careful not to lead me into 
further temptation. 

You may show this to T. or Mr. B., or any one. An effort made for 
truth. Wretchedly, 

(Signed) Elizabeth. 

This letter was wholly unsatisfactory to me, because nothing had 
occurred the day previous to which she could possibly have referred. 
After the publication, on the 2d day of November, 1872, in Woodhull 
& Claflin's Weekly, of the story of Tilton and Beecher's conduct in 
relation to Mrs. Tilton, and as my name was mentioned in the article as 
one possessing peculiar knowledge upon the whole subject, I was con- 
tinually asked by my acquaintances, and even by strangers, upon their 
ascertaining who I was, whether that publication was true; and I found 
great difficulty in making an answer. A refusal on my part to answer 
would have been taken to be a confession of the truth of the charges. 
Therefore, when people inquired who had no right to my confidence, I 
answered them in such phrase as, without making a direct statement, 
would lead them to infer that the charges could not be sustained. 

In some cases I doubt not that the inquirers supposed that I, in fact, 
denied their truth ; but upon that point I was very studious not directly 
to commit myself. Finding that my very silence was working injury to 
the cause of the suppression of the scandal, I told Tilton that I wished 
to be authorized by his wife to deny it. 

I thought it certainly could not possibly be true to the extent, and 
in the circumstances with the breadth, in which it was stated in that 
newspaper. Soon after I received the following paper, without date, from 
Mrs. Tilton, which is produced and marked " KK" : 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 355 

MRS. TILTON TO MOULTON. 

Mr. Moulton : 

My Dear Friend : — For niy husband's sake and my children's, I 
hereby testify, with all my woman's soul, that I am innocent of the 
crime of impure conduct alleged against me. I have been to my hus- 
band a true wife ; in his love I wish to live and die. My early affection 
for him still burns with its maiden flame ; all the more for what he has 
borne for my sake, both private and public wrongs. His plan to keep 
back scandals long ago threatened against me I never approved, and the 
result shows it unavailing ; but few would have risked so much as he has 
sacrificed for others ever since the conspiracy began against him, two 
years ago. 

Having had power to strike others, he has forborne to use it, and al- 
lowed himself to be injured instead. No wound is so great to me as the 
imputation that he is among my accusers. I bless him every day for 
his faith in me, which swerves not, and for standing my champion against 
all my accusers. 

(Signed) Elizabeth R. Tilton. 

Upon the strength of that I thereafterwards said that Mrs. Tilton 
denied the story. About the 16th December, 1872, Mr. Carpenter and 
Dr. Storrs undertook to look up the reports, with the intention, as I un- 
derstood, of advising some public statement, or as being concerned in 
some investigation of the matter, and Mrs. Tilton wrote for them the 
following paper bearing that date, which I produce, marked "LL" : 



December 16, 1872. 

In July, 1870, prompted by my duty, I informed my husband that Mr. 
H. W. Beecher, my friend and pastor, had solicited me to be a wife to 
him, together with all that this implied. Six months afterwards my 
husband felt impelled by the circumstances of a conspiracy against him, 
in which Mrs. Beecher had taken part, to have an interview with Mr. 
Beecher. 

In order that Mr. B. might know exactly what I had said to my hus- 
band I wrote a brief statement (I have forgotten in what form), which 
my husband showed to Mr. Beecher. Late the same evening Mr. B. 
came to me (lying very sick at the time), and filled me with distress, 
saying I had ruined him, and wanting to know if I meant to appear 
against him. This I certainly did not mean to do, and the thought was 
agonizing to me. 1 then signed a paper which he wrote, to clear him in 
case of a trial. In this instance, as in most others, when absorbed by 
one great interest or feeling, the .harmony of my mind is entirely dis- 
turbed, and I found on reflection that this paper was so drawn as to 
place me most unjustly against my husband, and on the side of Mr. 
Beecher. So, in order to repair so cruel a blow to my long-suffering 
husband, I wrote an explanation of the first paper, and my signature. 
Mr. Moulton procured from Mr. B. the statement which I gave to him 
in my agitation and excitement, and now holds it. 

This ends my connection with the case. 

(Signed) Elizabeth R. Tilton. 

P. S. — This statement is made at the request of Mr. Carpenter, that 
it may be shown confidentially to Dr. Storrs and other friends, with 
whom my husband and I are consulting. 



356 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

This paper was delivered to me, and the theory of the confession 
then was that Mr. and Mrs. Tilton should admit no more than the 
solicitation ; but that endeavor to make an explanation of the business 
fell through, and after it was shown to those interested, as I was told, 
the paper remained with me. 

I received no further communication from Mrs. Tilton until the 25th 
of June of this year (1874), and that communication came to me in this 
wise. When Tilton showed me his Dr. Bacon letter I most strongly 
and earnestly advised against its publication, and said to him in sub- 
stance that, while I admitted the wrong and injustice of Dr. Bacon's 
charges, that he (Mr. T.) hud lived by the magnanimity of Beecher, and 
that he was a dog and a knave, when I believed he had acted a proper 
and manly part in endeavoring to shield his family, yet that its publica- 
tion would so stir the public mind that an investigation would be forced 
upon him and Beecher in some manner which I could not then foresee, 
and that the truth would in all probability have to come out, or so much 
of it that Mrs. Tilton and Beecher would be dishonored and destroyed, 
and he himself be subjected to the severest criticism. Notwithstanding 
my advice, he was so wrought up with the continued assaults upon him 
by the friends of Beecher, that he determined on the publication of the 
letter. 

He said to me, in substance, that as the course I had advised in the 
matter in regard to the church investigation had been so completely set 
aside by Beecher's friends, and they had so far ignored all propositions 
coming from me as to the best mode of disposing of the matter, they 
evidently did not any longer intend to be guided by my counsel or 
wishes ; and if Beecher and his friends set me aside in the matter, he 
(Mr. T.) could see no reason why he should any longer yield to my en- 
treaties or follow my lead. The only modification that I was able to get 
of the Bacon letter was this : It originally read that Beecher had com- 
mitted against him and his family " a revolting crime." 

I insisted that that should be changed into " an offence committed 
against me," which was done, and the letter was published in that 
form. 

The reasons which actuated me to require this change by Tilton in 
his letter were in the hope that reconciliation and peace might still be 
possible. As the letter as amended would state an offence only, and 
also that an apology sufficient in the mind of Tilton had been made for 
that offence, if Beecher, in reply to the Bacon letter, should come out 
and state that it was true he had committed an offence against Tilton, for 
which he had made the most ample apology, which had been accepted 
by Tilton as satisfactory, and as the matter was nobody's business but 
that of the parties interested, he would never become a party to any 
investigation of the subject, and that Tilton had acted not unjustly or 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 357 

unfairly towards him in what he had done, that in such case the affair 
might possibly have been quieted and peace maintained. But if the 
words "revolting crime" remained in the letter, all hope of reconcilia- 
tion or escaping the fullest investigation would be impossible. After 
the publication of that letter I so advised Mr. Beecher, his friends and 
counsel, but that advice was unheeded; and I also gave Mr. Beecher the 
same advice at a consultation with him for which he asked in a letter, 
which will hereafter, in its proper place, be produced. Some days sub- 
sequent to this advice of mine to Tilton, I received the following letter, 
of date June 25, 1874, from Mrs, Tilton, which is the last communica- 
tion I have had with or from her on the subject. It is herewith pro- 
duced, and marked " MM " : 

MRS. TILTON TO MOULTON. 

June 25, 1 874. 
Mr. Moulton: — It is fitting 1 should make quick endeavor to undo 
my injustice towards you. 

I learned from Theodore last night that you greatly opposed the pub- 
lication of his statement to Dr. Bacon. I had coupled you with Mr. 
Carpenter as advising it. 
Forgive me, and accept my gratitude. 

(Signed) Eliz. R. Tilton. 

Having now placed before the committee my statement of the facts 
concerning Mrs. Tilton, and the documentary evidence that I have to 
support them, and as they are diametrically opposed to nearly all that 
Mrs. Tilton appears to declare in her published statement, I deem it ray 
duty to myself, and my position in this terrible business, to say that 
during this affair Mrs. Tilton has more than once admitted to me and to 
another person to my knowledge — whom I do not care to bring into this 
controversy — the fact of her sexual relations with Beecher, and she 
never has once denied them, other than in the written papers prepared 
for a purpose which I have already exhibited ; but on the contrary, the 
fact of such criminal intercourse being well understood by Beecher, 
Tilton and Mrs. Tilton to have taken place, my whole action in the mat- 
ter was based upon the existence of that fact, and was an endeavor, 
faithfully carried out by me in every way possible, to protect the families 
of both parties from the consequences of a public disclosure of Mrs. 
Tilton's admitted infidelities to her husband. 

I now return to the documentary evidence, and the necessary expla- 
nations thereof, which I have of the condition of the affair as regards 
Beecher himself, after the fall of 1871, as disconnected with the affairs 
of Bowen which I have already explained. At about this time I 
received the following letter, marked " MM 2 " : 



358 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

MRS. WOODHULL TO BEECHER. 

15 East Thirty-eighth Street, 19th, 11th, 1871. 
Rev. H. W. Beeoher : 

Dear Sir : — For reasons in which you are deeply interested as well as 
myself, and the cause of truth, I desire to have an interview with you, 
without fail, at some hour to-morrow. Two of your sisters have gone 
out of their way to assail my character and purposes, both by the means 
of the public press and by numerous private letters written to various 
persons with whom they seek to injure me and thus to defeat the political 
ends at which 1 aim. 

You doubtless know that it is in my power to strike back, and in ways 
more disastrous than anything that can come to me ; but I do not desire 
to do this. I simply desire justice from those from whom I have a right 
to expect it ; and a reasonable course on your part will assist me to 
it. I speak guardedly, but 1 think you will understand me. I repeat 
that I must have an interview to-morrow, since I am to speak to- 
morrow evening at Steinway Hall, and what I shall or shall not say 
will depend largely upon the result of the interview. 

Yours very truly, 
(Signed) . Victoria C. Woodhull. 

P. S. Please return answer by bearer. 

The foregoing letter occasioned Mr. Tilton much anxiety lest Mrs. 
"Woodhull, in proceeding against Mr. Beecher and his sisters, would 
thereby involve Mrs. Tilton. 

Accordingly, knowing that Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Woodhull were to 
have an interview at my house on the next day, he came to it, unin- 
vited, and urged Mr. Beecher to preside on that evening at Steinway 
Hall. After Mrs. W. left, Tilton repeated this urgency to Beecher. 

On that evening I went to Steinway Hall with Tilton ; and finding no 
one there to preside, Tilton volunteered to preside himself, which, I 
believe, had the effect of preventing Mrs. WoodhulPs proposed attack 
on the Beecher family at that time. On the 30th of December, 1871, 
Mrs. Woodhull also sent a letter to Beecher, desiring that he would 
speak at a woman's suffrage convention in Washington, to be held on 
the 10th, 11th, and 12th of January following. That letter Beecher for- 
warded to me, with the following note of the date of 2d of January, 
1872, herewith produced and marked " NN " : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

Brooklyn, Tuesday Evening, 2d January, 1872. 

My Dear Moulton : — 1. I send you Y. W.'s letter to me, and a reply 
which I submit to your judgment. Tell me what you think. Is it too 
long ? Will she use it for publishing ? I do not wish to have it so used. 
T do not mean to speak on the platform of either of the two suffrage 
societies. What influence I exert I prefer to do on my own hook ; and 
I do not mean to train with either party, and it will not be fair to press 
me in where I do not wish to go. But I leave it for you. Judge for 
me. I have leaned on you hitherto, and never been sorry for it. 

2. I was mistaken about the Oh. Union coming out so early that I 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 359 

could not get a notice of G. Age in it. It was just the other way, to be de- 
layed, and I send you a rough proof of the firs I page, and the Star article. 
In the paper to-morrow a line or so will be inserted to soften a little 
the touch about the Lib. Christian. 

3. Do you think I ought to keep a copy of any letters to Y. W.? Do 
you think it would be better to write it again, and not say so much? 
Will you keep the letter to me, and send the other if you judge it wise? 

4. Will you send a line to my house in the morning saying what you 
conclude ? 

I am full of company. 

Yours truly and affectionately, (Signed) H. W. B. 

There is a paragraph in this note which needs a word of explanation. 
I had advised Beecher, in order that he might show that there was no 
unkindly feeling between him and Tilton, to publish in the Christian 
Union a reference to the Golden Age. He agreed to do so, but instead 
of that he had a notice which I thought was worse than if he had said 
nothing, and the allusion in the second paragraph of this letter is to a 
letter which I had written to Beecher upon the two topics — this and 
Mrs. Woodhull. 

A retained copy of my letter I herewith submit, and marked " 00 " : 

MOULTON" TO BEECHER. 

My Dear Sir : — First with reference to Mrs. Woodhull's letter and 
your answer : I think that you would have done better to accept the in- 
vitation to speak in Washington, but if lecture interferes your letter in 
reply is good enough, and will bear publication. 

With relation to your notice of the Golden Age I tell you frankly, as 
your friend, that I am ashamed of it, and would rather you had written 
nothing. Your early associations with and your present knowledge of 
the man who edits that paper are grounds upon which you might to 
have so written that no reader would have doubted that in your opinion 
Theodore Tilton's public and private integrity was unquestionable. If 
the article had been written to compliment the Independent it would 
receive my unqualified approval. 

On the 5th of February, 1872, I received from Mr. Beecher the letter 
which I here produce, of that date, and marked " P P " : 

BEECHER TO MOULTOK. 

Monday, February 5, 1872. 

My Dear Friend : — I leave town to-day, and expect to pass through 
from Philadelphia to New Haven. Shall not be here till Friday. 

About three weeks ago I met T. in the cars going to B. He was 
kind. We talked much. At the end he told me to go on with my work 
without the least anxiety, in so far as his feelings and actions were the 
occasion of apprehension. 

On returning home from New Haven (where I am three days in the 
week delivering a course of lectures to the theological students), I found 
a note from E. saying that T. felt hard toward me, and was going to see 
or write me before leaving for the West. 

She kindly added : " Do not be cast down. I bear this almost always, 



360 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

but the God in whom we trust will deliver us all safely. I know you do, 
and are willing 1 abundantly to help him, and I also know your embar- 
rassments." These were words of warning-, but also of consolation, for 
I believe E. is beloved of God, and that her prayers for me are sooner 
heard than mine for myself or for her. But it seems that a change has 
came to T. since I saw him in the cars. Indeed, ever since he has felt 
more intensely the force of feeling- in society, and the humiliations which 
environ his enterprise, he has growingly felt that I had a power to help 
which I did not develop, and 1 believe that you have participated in this 
feeling. It is natural you should. T. is dearer to yon than lean be. 
lie is with you. All his trials lie open to your eye daily. But I see you 
but seldom, and in; personal relations; environments, necessities, limita- 
tions, dangers and perplexities, you cannot see or imagine. If I had 
not gone through this great year of sorrow. I would not have believed 
that any one could pass through my experience and be alive or sane. I 
have been the centre of three distinct circles, each one of which required 
clear-iniude-lness and peculiarly inventive or originating power, viz. : 

1. The great church. 

2. The newspaper. 

3. The book. 

The first I could neither get out of nor slight. The sensitiveness of 
so many of my people would have made any appearance of trouble or 
any remission of force an occasion of alarm and notice, and have excited, 
when it was important that rumors should die and everything be 
quieted. 

The newspiper I did roll off, doing but little except give general 
direction-;, and in so doing I was continually spurred and exhorted by 
those in interest. It could not be helped. 

The "Life of Christ," long delayed, had locked up the capital of the 
firm, and was likely to sink them. Finished it mast be. Was ever 
book born of such sorrow as that wis? The interior history of it will 
never be written. 

During all this time yon. literally, were all my stay and comfort. I 
should have fallen on the way but for the courage which you inspired 
and the hope which you breathed. 

My vacation was profitable. I came back, hoping that the bitterness 
of death was passed. But T.'s troubles brought back the cloud, with 
even severer suffering. For all this fall and winter I have felt that 
you did not feel satisfied with me, and that I seemed, both to you and 
T.. e^s contenting myself with a cautious or sluggish policy, willing to 
save myself, but not to risk anything for T. I have again and again 
probed my heart to see whether I was truly liable to such feeling, and 
the response is unequivocal that I am not. No man can see the diufi- 
cu'.ties that environ me unless he stands where I do. 

To say that I have a church on my hands is simple enough — but 
to have the hundreds and thousands of men pressing me. each one 
with his keen suspicion, or anxiety, or zeal; to see tendencies which, 
if not stopped, would break out into a ruinous defence of me; to stop 
them without seeming to do it; to prevent any one questioning me; 
to meet and allay prejudices against T.. which had their beginning 
years before this ; to keep serene, as if I was not alarmed or disturbed; 
to be cheerful at home and among friends, when I was suffering the 
torments of the damned ; to pass sleepless nights often, and yet to come 
up fresh and full for Sunday — all this may be talked about, but the 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 361 

real thing cannot be understood from the outside, nor its wearing and 
grinding on the nervous system. 

God knows that I have put more thought, and judgment, and earnest 
desire into my efforts to prepare a way for T. and E. than ever I did 
for myseif a hundred-fold. As to the outside public, I have never lost an 
opportunity to soften prejudices, to refute falsehoods, and to excite 
kindly feeling among all whom I met. I am thrown among clergy- 
men, public men, and generally the makers of public opinion, and I 
have used every rational endeavor to repair the evils which have been 
visited upon T., and with increasing success. 

But the roots of this prejudice are long. The catastrophe which 
precipitated him from his place only disclosed feelings that had existed 
long. Neither lie nor you can be aware of the feelings of classes in 
society, on other grounds than late rumors. I mention this to explain 
why / know with absolute certainty that no mere statement, letter, tes- 
timony, or affirmation will reach the root of affairs and reinstate them. 
Time and work will. 

But chronic evil requires chronic remedies. If my destruction 
would place him all right, that shall not stand in the w r ay. I am willing 
to step down, and out. No one can offer more than that. That I do 
offer. Sacrifice me without hesitation if you can clearly see your way 
to his safety and happiness thereby. I do not think that anything 
would be gained by it. I should be destroyed, but he would not be 
saved. E. and the children would have their future clouded. In one 
point of view I could desire the sacrifice on my part. Nothing can 
possibly be so bad as the horror of great darkness in which I spend 
much of my time. I look upon death as sweeter-faced than any friend I 
have in the world. Life would be pleasant if I could see that rebuilt 
which is shattered ; but to live on the sharp and ragged edge of anxiety, 
remorse, fear, despair, and yet to put on all the appearance of serenity 
and happiness, cannot be endured much longer. 

I am well-nigh discouraged. If you. too, cease to trust me — to love 
me — I am alone. I have not another person in the world to whom I 
could go. 

Well — to God I commit all — whatever it may he here, it shall be well 
there. With sincere gratitude for your heroic friendship, and with 
sincere affection, even though you love 'me not, 

I am yours (though unknown to you), 
(Signed) H. W. B. 

This letter was to let me know that Elizabeth had written him, con- 
trary to her promise, without my permission, and also to inform me of 
his fears as to the change in Tilton's mind, and its clear statement of 
the case as it then stood cannot be further elucidated by me. On the 
25th of March I received a portrait of Titian as a present from Mr. 
Beecher. with the following note, as a token of his confidence and re- 
spect. It is produced, and marked " QQ " : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

Monday Morntno. March 25, 1872. 
My Dear Friend : — I sent on Friday or Saturday a portrait of Titian 
to the store for you. I hope it may suit you. 

I have been doing ten men's work this winter — partly to make up lost 



362 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

time, partly because I live under a cloud, feeling every month that I 
may be doing my last work, and anxious to make the most of it. "When 
Esau sold his birthright he found " no place for repentance, though he 
sought it carefully with tears." But 1 have one abiding comfort. I 
have known you, and found in you one who has given a new meaning to 
friendship. As soon as warm days come I want you to go to Peekskill 
with me. 

T am off in an hour for Massachusetts, to be gone all the week. 

I am urging forward my second volume of " Life of Christ," for " the 
night cometh when no man can work." 

With much affection and admiration, yours truly, H. W. B. 

After Tilton had written a campaign document against Grant's ad- 
ministration, and in favor of Mr. Greeley's election, Bcecher discussed 
with me the position taken by Tilton. Beecher also gave me a copy of 
his (Beecher's) speech opening the Grant campaign in Brooklyn. After 
the speech was delivered, he sent me the following note of May 17, 
1872, which I here produce, marked " RR" : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

May 17. 1872. 

My Deaf. Frank : — I send you the only copy I have of my speech at 
the Academy of Music on Grant, and have marked the passage that we 
spoke about last night, and you will see just what I said, and that I 
argued then just as I do now. 

Pray send it back, or I shall be left without a speech ! 

I read Theodore's on Grant. I do not think it just. It is ably written ; 
it is a case of grape-shot. Yet, I think it will overact; it is too strong — 
will be likely to produce a feeling among those not already intense, that 
it is excessive. Yours sincerely and ever, H. W. B. 

Don't forget to send back my speech I 

About the time of this occurrence Beecher and Tilton met at my 
house on friendly terms. In fact I cannot exhibit better the tone of 
Tilton's mind in the winter and spring of 1871-72 than to produce here 
a letter, written to me at that time without date, but I can fix the date 
as early as that. It is here produced, and marked " SS " : 

TIETON TO MOUETON. 

Hudson River Railroad, Monday Morning. 

My Dear Frank : — I am writing while the train is in motion — which 
accounts for the apparent drunkenness of this shaken chirography. 
Mrs. Beecher sits in the next seat. We are almost elbow to elbow in 
the palace car. She is white-haired, and looks a dozen years older than 
when I last had a near view of her. My heart has been full of pity for 
her, notwithstanding the cruel way in which she has treated my good 
name. Her face is written over with many volumes of human suffering. 
I do not think she has been aware of my presence, for she has been 
absorbed in thought — her eyes rooted to one spot. 

A suggestion has occurred to me, which I hasten to communicate. 
She is going to Florida, and may never return alive. If I am ever to 
be vindicated from the slanders which she has circulated, or which Mr. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 363 

Bowen pretends to have derived from her and Mrs. Morse, why would it 
not be well to get from her and Mrs. Morse a statement under oath (by 
such a process as last evening's documents make easy and harmless) of 
the exact narrations which they made to him and to others. 
• It would be well to have them say what they said before he gets a 
chance to say what they said to him. Speak to Mr. Ward about it. 
Of course, I leave the matter wholly to you and him. 

I am unusually heavy-hearted this morning. My sullen neighbor 
keeps the dark and lurid past vividly before my mind. If she actually 
knew the conduct which her priestly husband has been guilty of, I be- 
lieve she would shed his blood — or perhaps, saving him, she would 
wreak her wrath on his victims. There is a look of desperation in her 
eye to-day, as if she were competent to anything bitter or revengeful. 
But perhaps I misjudge her mind. I hope I do. 

I shall not be home till Thursday afternoon instead of morning, as I 
said — leaving for Washington at 9 r. m. that evening. 

Ever yours, Theodore. 

On the 3d of June, 1872, Beecher received from Mrs. Woodhull the 
following letter of that date, which I here produce, marked " TT " : 

MRS. WOODHULL TO BEECHER. 

48 Broad Street, June 3, 1872. 
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher : 

My Dear Sir : — The social fight against me being now waged in this 
city is becoming rather hotter than I can well endure longer, standing 
unsupported and alone as I have until now. Within the past two weeks 
I have been shut out of hotel after hotel, and am now, after having ob- 
tained a place in one, hunted down by a set of males and females, who 
are determined that I shall not be permitted to live even, if they can 
prevent it. 

Now, I want your assistance. I want to be sustained in my position 
in the Gilsey House, from which I am ordered out and from which I do 
not wish to go — and all this simply because I am Victoria C. Woodhull, 
the advocate of social freedom. I have submitted to this persecution 
just so long as I can endure to : my business, my projects, in fact 
everything for which I live suffers from it, and it must cease. Will you 
lend me your aid in this ? Yours very truly, 

Victoria C. Woodhull. 

The above letter was sent to me enclosed in a note from Beecher of 
the same date, which is here produced and marked " UU " : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

Monday Evening, June 3, 1872. 

My Dear Mr. Moclton : — Will you answer this ? Or will you see 
that she is to understand that I can do nothing ? I certainly shall not, 
at any and all hazards, take a single step in that direction, and if it brings 
trouble — it must come. 

Please drop me a line to say that all is right — if in your judgment 
all is right. Truly yours, H. W. B. 

This letter of Mrs. Woodhull, together with those before produced 



364 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

asking Beecher to speak at a suffrage convention, are all the letters I 
have from her to Beecher. To this letter no reply was made. 

After the publication of the tripartite covenant by Mr. Wilkeson, 
which I believe was on the 29th of May, 1873, the story of the troubles 
between Beecher and Tilton was revived, with many rumors, and those 
claiming to be friends of Beecher were endeavoring, as Tilton thought, 
to explain the terms of that covenant in r manner prejudicial to him. 
Some enemies of Beecher were endeavoring to get some clue to the 
proofs of the facts lying at the bottom of these scandals. 

After the publication of this ''tripartite covenant" was made, Tilton 
deemed, from the comments of the press, that the statement reflected 
upon him. and he desired that in some way Beecher should relieve him 
from the imputation of having circulated slanderous stories about him 
without justification, for which he had apologized, and by advice of 
friends he prepared a card for me to submit to Beecher to have him 
sign and publish in his vindication. The original card I herewith pro- 
duce, marked " UU 1 " : 

A CARD FROM HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

A letter written by Theodore Tilton to Henry C. Bowen, dated Brook- 
lyn, January 1, 1871. narrating charges made by Mr. Bowen against my 
character, has been made public in a community in which I am a citizen 
and clergyman, and thrusts upon me, by no agency of my own, what I 
could not with propriety invite for myself, namely, an opportunity to 
make the following statements: 

I. By the courtesy of Mr. Tilton, that letter was shown to me at the 
time it was written, and before it was conveyed to Mr. Bowen, two and 
a half years ago. By legal and other advisers, Mr. Tilton was urged to 
publish it then, without delay, or a similar statement explaining his 
sudden collision with Mr. Bowen, and his unexpected retirement as 
editor of the Union, and contributor to the Independent. But although 
Mr. Tilton's public standing needed such an explanation to be made, 
and although he had my free consent to make it, yet he magnanimously 
refrained from doing so, through an unwillingness to disclose to the 
public Mr. Bowen's aspersions concerning myself. Mr. Tilton's con- 
sideration for my feelings and reputation, thus evinced at the beginning, 
has continued to the end, and I have never ceased to be grateful to him 
for an uncommon manliness in accepting wounds to his own reputation 
for the sake of preventing aspersions o» mine. 

II. The surreptitious and unauthorized publication last Sunday of 
Mr. Tilton's letter — a publication made without the knowledge either 
of Mr. Tilton or myself — gives me the right to say that Mr. Bowen long 
ago retracted his mistaken charges in the following words, under his 
own hand and seal, dated , namely ; 

III. In addition to Mr. Bowen's voluntary statement, above given, I 
solemnly pronounce the charges to be false, one and all, and to be 
without any color of reason or foundation in fact. 

IV. All my differences with Mr. Bowen, and all temporary misunder- 
standings between Mr. Tilton and myself growing out of these, were 
long ago settled justly, amicably, and in the spirit of mutual good-will. 

(Signed) Henry Ward Beecher. 



THE BBOOKLYN" SCANDAL. 365 

Beecher felt much aggrieved at this claim upon him by Tilton, feeling 
that the matter had been all settled and adjusted, and he answered Til- 
ton's application in this regard by the letter herewith produced under 
date June 1, 1873, marked " UU 2 " : 

BEECHER TO MOUETON. 

Sunday Morning, June 1, 1873. 

My Dear Frank : — The whole earth is tranquil and the heaven is 
serene, as befits one who has about finished his world-life. I could do 
nothing on Saturday. My head was confused. But a good sleep has 
made it like crystal. I have determined to make no more resistance. 
Theodore's temperament is such that the future, even if temporarily 
earned, would be absolutely worthless, filled with abrupt charges, and 
rendering me liable, at any hour or day, to be obliged to stultify all 
the devices by which we have saved ourselves. It is only fair that he 
should know that the publication of the card which he proposes would 
leave him far worse off than before. 

The agreement was made after my letter, through you, was written. 
He had had it a year. He had condoned his wife's fault. He had enjoined 
upon me with the utmost earnestness and solemnity not to betray his 
wife, nor leave his children to a blight. I had honestly and earnestly 
joined in the purpose. Then, this settlement was made and signed by 
him. It was not my making. He revised his part so that it should wholly 
suit him, and signed it. It stood unquestioned and unblamed for more 
than a year. Then it was published. Nothing but that. That which he 
did in private, when made public, excited him to fury, and he charges me 
with making him appear as one graciously pardoned by me! It was his 
own deliberate act, with which he was perfectly content till others saw 
it, and then he charges a grievous wrong home on me ! 

My mind is clear. I am not in haste. I shall write for the public a 
statement that will bear the light of the judgment day. God will take 
care of me and mine. When I look on earth it is deep night. When I 
look to the heavens above I see the morning breaking. But oh ! that I 
could put in golden letters my deep sense of your faithful, earnest, undy- 
ing fidelity, your disinterested friendship. Your noble wife, too, has 
been to me one of God's comforters. It is such as she that renews a 
waning faith in womanhood. Now, Frank, I would not have you waste 
any more energy on a hopeless task. With such a man as T. T. there 
is no possible salvation for any that depend upon him. With a strong 
nature, he does not know how to govern it. With generous impulses, 
the undercurrent that rules him is self. With ardent affections, he can- 
not love long that which does not repay him with admiration and praise. 
With a strong, theatric nature, he is constantly imposed upon with the 
idea that a position, a great stroke, a conp-d'e'iat, is the way to success. 

Besides these he has a hundred good things about him, but these 
named traits make him absolutely unreliable. 

Therefore there is no use in further trying. I have a strong feeling 
upon me, and it brings great peace with it, that I am spending my last 
Sunday and preaching my last sermon. 

Dear, good God, I thank thee I am indeed beginning to see rest and 
triumph. The pain of life is but a moment; the glory of everlasting 
emancipation is wordless, inconceivable, full of beckoning glory. Oh, 
my beloved Frank, I shall know you there, and forever hold fellowship 
with you, and look back and smile at the past. Your loving 

H. W. B. 



366 THE TKUE HISTORY OF 

Meanwhile, charges were preferred against Tilton for the purpose of 
having him dismissed from Plymouth Church. This action, which 
seemed to threaten the discovery of the facts in regard to the troubles 
between Beecher and Tilton, annoyed both very much, and I myself 
feared that serious difficulty would arise therefrom. Upon consultation 
with Beecher and Tilton I suggested a plan by which that investigation 
would be rendered unnecessary, which was, in substance, that a resolu- 
tion should be passed by the church amending its roll, alleging that 
Tilton having voluntarily withdrawn from the church some four years 
before, therefore the roll should be amended by striking off his name. 
This course had been suggested to me by Tilton about a year and a half 
before in answer to a letter by Beecher, dated December 3, 1871, marked 
"UU3": 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

My Dear Friend : — There are two or three who feel anxious to press 
action on the case. It will only serve to raise profitless excitement, 
when we need to have quieting. 

There are already complexities enough. 

We do not want to run the risk of the complications which, in such a 
body, no man can foresee and no one control. Once free from a sense 
of responsibility for him, and there would be a strong tendency for 
kindly feeling to set in. which now is checked by the membership, with- 
out attendance, sympathy, or doctrinal agreement. 

Since the connection is really formal, and not vital or sympathetic, 
why should it continue, with all the risk of provoking irritating meas- 
ures ? Every day's reflection satisfies me that this is the course of wis- 
dom, and that T. will be the stronger and B. the weaker for it. 

You said that you meant to effect it. Can't it be done promptly ? 
If a letter is written it had better be very short, simply announcing 
withdrawal, and perhaps with an expression of kind wishes, etc. 

You will know. I shall be in town Monday and part of Tuesday. 
Shall I hear from you? 

December 3, 1871. 

But when the meeting of the church was held for that purpose it was 
charged there that Tilton had slandered the pastor. Tilton therefore 
took the stand, and said in substance that if he had uttered any slanders 
against Beecher he was ready to answer them, as God was his witness. 
Beecher thereupon stated that he had no charges to make, and the 
matter dropped. But when the resolution was passed, instead of being 
put so as to exonerate Tilton. it was declared in substance that, whereas 
certain charges had been made against him, and as he pleaded to those 
charges non-membership, his name be dropped from the roll. 

This action of the church very much exasperated Tilton, who thought 
that Beecher should have prevented such a result, and that he might 
have done so if he had stood by him fully and fairly as agreed. In that, 
however, I believe Tilton was mistaken, because Mr. William F. West, 



THE BKOOKLYX SCANDAL. 367 

who preferred the charges against Tilton, did it against the wish of 
Beecher and without any consultation with him, as appears by the fol- 
lowing letter of June 25, 1873, produced here, and marked " YY. " : 

MR. WEST TO BEECHER. 

New York, June 25, 1873. 
Key. H. W. Beecher : 

Dear Sir : — Moved by a sense of duty as a member of Plymouth 
Church, I have decided to prefer charges against Henry C. Bowen and 
Theodore Tilton, and have requested Brother Halliday to call a meeting 
of the Examining Committee in order that I may make the charges 
before them. 

Thinking that you would perhaps like to be made acquainted with 
these facts I called last evening at Mr. Beach's house, where I was 
informed that you had returned to Peekskill. 

I therefore write you by early mail to-day. 

Yours very truly, Wm. F. West. 

Meanwhile, through the intervention of Dr. Storrs and others, as I 
understood, an ecclesiastical Council had been called. The acts of this 
Council in attempting to disfellowship Plymouth Church were very dis- 
pleasing to Beecher, and caused him much trouble, especially the action 
of Dr. Storrs, which he expressed to me in the following letter, dated 
March 25, 1874, which is here produced and marked " WW " : 

BEECHER TO MOULTOX. 

[Confidential.] 

My Dear Frank : — I am indignant beyond expression. Storrs's 
course has been an unspeakable outrage. After his pretended sympathy 
and friendship for Theodore he has turned against him in the most ven- 
omous manner — and it is not sincere. His professions of faith and 
affection for me are hollow and faithless. They are merely tactical. His 
object is plain. He is determined \o force aconilict, and to use one of us 
to destroy the other if possible. That is his game. By stinging Theo- 
dore he believes that he will be driven into a course which he hopes will 
ruin me. If ever a man betrayed another he has. I am in hopes that 
Theodore, who has borne so much, will be unwilling to be a flail in 
Storrs's hand to strike at a friend. There are one or two reasons, 
emphatic, for waiting until the end of the Council before taking any 
action : 

1. That the attack on Plymouth Church and the threats against Con- 
gregationalism were so violent that the public mind is likely to be 
absorbed in the ecclesiastical elements and not in the personal. 

2. If Plymouth Church is dirfellow shipped it will constitute a blow at 
me and the church, far severer than at him. 

3. That if Council does not dWrtlowship Plymouth Church, then, 
undoubtedly, Storrs will go off into Presbyterianism, as he almost, with- 
out disguise, threatened in his speech, and, in that case, the emphasis 
will be there. 

4. At any rate, while the fury rages in Council, it is not wise to make 
any move that would be one among so many, as to lose effect in a de- 
gree, and after the battle is over one can more exactly see what ought 



368 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

to be done. Meantime I am 'patient as I know how to be, but pretty 
nearly used up with inward excitement, and must run away for a day or 
two and hide and sleep, or there will be a funeral. 

Cordially and trustingly yours, H. W. B. 

March 25, 1874. 

No one can tell, under first impressions, what the effect of such a 
speech will be. It owjlxt to damn Storrs. 

While these proceedings were pending, Rev. Mr. Halliday, the assistant 
of Beecher, called upon him and upon me to endeavor to learn the facts 
about the difficulties between Beecher and Tilton. I stated to Halliday 
that I did not think that either he or the church were well employed in 
endeavoring to reopen a trouble which had been adjusted and settled 
by the parties to it, and that it was better, in my judgment, for every- 
body that the whole matter should be allowed to repose in quiet. The 
result of the interview between Halliday and Beecher was communi- 
cated to me in the following letter, undated and unsigned, so that I can- 
not fix the date, but it is in Beecher's handwriting, and is here produced 
and marked " XX " : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

Sunday — a. m. 

My Dear Friknd : — Halliday called last night. TVs interview with 
him did not satisfy, but disturbed. It was the same with Belle, who was 
present. It tended directly to unsettling. 

Your interview last night was very beneficial, and gave confidence. 
This must be looked after. 

It is vain to build if the foundation sinks under every effort. 

I shall see you at 10.30 to-morrow — if you return by way of 49 
Remsen. 

The anxiety which Beecher felt about these stories, and the steps he 
took to quiet them, together with the trust he reposed in me and my 
endeavors to aid him in that behalf, may perhaps be as well seen from a 
letter headed "25, '73," which I believe to be June 25, 1873, and di- 
rected, "My Dear Yon Moltke," meaning myself, and kindly compli- 
menting me with the name of a general having command of a battle. 
It is here produced and marked "YY": 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

25, '73. 
My Dear Yon Moltke: — I have seen Howard again. He says that 
it was not from Theodore that Gilkison got the statement, but from 
Carpenter. 

Is he reporting that view ? I have told Claflin that you would come 
with Carpenter if he could be found, and at any rate by 9 to night (to 
see Storrs), but I did not say anything about Storrs. 

I sent Cleveland with my horse and buggy over to hunt Carpenter. 
Will you put Carpenter on his guard about making such statements ? 
From him these bear the force of coming from head-quarters. 

Yours truly and ever, H. W. Beecher. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 369 

Meanwhile Hailiday had had an interview with Tilton, the result of 
which, as unsettling the matter between Tilton and Beecher, w r as very 
anxiously awaited by Beecher, who communicated to me, and who was 
alsc quite as anxious that Tilton should take no steps by which the 
matter between them should get into the newspapers or be made in any 
manner a matter- of controversy. With this view he stated the situa- 
tion on the same night of the interview of Hailiday and Tilton in the 
following letter, which is without date and was written in pencil in great 
haste, and is here produced, marked " ZZ " : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON". 

Sunday Night. 
Mt Dear Friend : 

1. The Eagle ought to have nothing to-night. It is that meddling 
which stirs up our folks. Neither you nor Theodore ought to be 
troubled by the side which you served so faithfully in public. 

2. The deacon's meeting I think is adjourned. I saw Bell. It was a 
friendly movement. 

3. The only near, next danger is the women — Morrill, Bradshaw, and 
the poor, dear child. 

If papers will hold off a month we can ride out the gale and make 
safe anchorage, and then when once we are in deep, tranquil waters we 
will all join hands in a profound and genuine sans Deo, for through such 
a wilderness only a Divine Providence could have led us undevoured by 
the open-mouthed beasts that lay in wait for our lives. 

I go on 12 train after sleepless night. I am anxious about Theodore's 
interview with Hailiday. Will you send me a line Monday night or 
Tuesday morning, care of M. P. Kennard, Boston, Mass. ? 

I shall get mails there till Friday. 

I nave now produced to the committee all the letters and documents 
bearing upon the subject matter of this inquiry which I have in my 
possession, either from Beecher, Tilton, or Mrs. Tilton, previous to the 
Bacon letter, and there is but one collateral matter of which I desire to 
speak. 

I saw questions put in the cross-examination of Tilton, as, published 
in the Brooklyn Eagle, and also published in the newspapers— with how 
much of truth I know not— that Mr. Samuel Wilkeson had charged that 
Tilton's case in controversy with Bowen was for the purpose of blackmail- 
ing him and Beecher, and that he (Wilkeson) knew that there had been 
no crime ommitted against Tilton or his household by Beecher. Beecher 
never intimated to me that he thought there was any desire on Tilton's 
part to blackmail him ; and as I had the sole management of the money 
controversy between Tilton and Bowen. which I have already fully 
explained, I know there was no attempt on Tilton's part to blackmail or 
get anything more than wlfcit I believed his just due from Bowen. So 
that I am certain Mr. Wilkeson is wholly mistaken in that regard. 

The question whether Wilkeson knew or believed that any offence had 
24 



370 THE TKUE HISTORY OF 

been committed will depend upon the fact whether lie knew of anything 
that had been done by Beecher or Tilton's wife which called for apology 
at the time he wrote the tripartite covenant. It will be remembered that 
the tripartite covenant was made solely in reference to the disclosures 
which Bowen had made to Tilton and Tilton had made to Bowen ; and 
Tilton's letter sets forth that the only disclosures he made to Bowen of 
Beecher's acts towards himself were of improper advances made to his 
wife, and that he so limited his charge in order to save the honor of his 
wufe. These questions will be answered by the production of the letter 
of April 2, 1872, written by Samuel Wilkeson, which is marked 
" AAA " : 



NY, | 

(WAY, V 

72. \ 



WILKESON TO MOULTON. 

Northern Pacific Railroad Company, 
Secretary's Office, 120 Broadway, 
New York, April 2, l&t 
My Dear Moulton: — Now for the closing act of justice and duty. 
Let Theodore pass into your hand the written apology which he holds 
for the improper advances, and do you pass it into the flames of the 
friendly fire in your room of reconciliation. Then let Theodore talk to 
Oliver Johnson. 

I hear that he and Carpenter, the artist, have made this whole affair 
the subject of conversation in the clubs. 

Sincerely yours, Samuel Wilkeson. 

This letter, it will be observed, contains no protest against blackmail- 
ing, either on Tilton's part or my own, upon Beecher or Bowen, and is 
of the date of the tripartite covenant. Wilkeson, also, hearing of Tilton's 
troubles, kindly offered to procure him a very lucrative employment in 
a large enterprise with which he was connected, as appears from a letter 
dated January 11, 1871, which I herewith produce, marked "BBB 1" : 



WILKESON TO TILTON. 

Northern Pacific Railroad Company, 
January 11, 1871. 



Dear Tilton:— You are in trouble. I come to you with a letter just 
mailed to Jay Cooke, advising him to secure your services as a platform 
speaker to turn New England. Old England, or the great West upside 
down about our Northern Pacific. 

Pluck up heart ! You shan't be trampled down. Keep quiet. Don't 
talk. DON'T PUBLISH. Abide your time and it will be a very good 
time. Take my word for it. Samuel Wilkeson. 

It will be observed that this letter was dated after the letter of apology, 
and after the letter of Tilton to Bowen, and Wilkeson could hardly have 
desired to employ in so grave an enterprise one whom he then knew or 
believed to be attempting to blackmail his employer. And besides, his 



THE BBOOKLYN SCANDAL. 371 

kindly expressions and advice to Tilton seem to me wholly inconsistent 
with such an allegation. 

I think it just, in this connection, to state a fact which bears, in my 
mind, upon this subject. On the 3d of May, 1873, I knew that Tilton 
was in want of money, and I took leave, without consulting him, to 
send him my check for a thousand dollars, and a due-bill for that amount 
to be signed by him, enclosed in a letter which I here produce, marked 
"BBB2," all of which he returned to me with an indorsement thereon. 
The following is the document : 

MOULTON TO TILTON. 

New York, May 3, 1873. 
Dear Theodore: — I enclose to you a check for one thousand dollars, 
for which please sign the enclosed. Yours, F. D. Moultox. 

[Indorsement on above by Tilton.] 

Dear Frank: — T can't borrow any money — for I see no way of return- 
ing it. Hastily, T. T. 

After the above paper was returned to me, on the same day I sent 
him the thousand dollars, leaving it to be a matter as between ourselves 
and not a money transaction. 

I know, to the contrary of this so far as Beecher is concerned, that 
Tilton never made any demand on him for money or pecuniary aid in 
any way or* form. He asked only that Beecher should interpose his 
influence and power to protect him from the slanders of those who 
claimed to be Beecher's friends ; while Beecher himself, with generosity 
and kindness towards Tilton which had always characterized his acts 
during the whole of this unhappy controversy, of his own motion in- 
sisted, through me, in aiding Tilton in establishing his enterprise of the 
Golden Age, for which purpose he gave me the sum of five thousand 
dollars, which I was to expend in such manner as I deemed judicious to 
keep the enterprise along, and if Tilton was at any time in need person- 
ally, to aid him. It was understood between myself and Beecher that 
this money should go to Tilton as if it came from my own voluntary 
contributions for his benefit, and that he should not know— and he does 
not know until he reads this statement, for I do not believe he has 
derived it from any other source — that this money came from Beecher, 
or thinks that he is in any way indebted to him for it. I annex an ac- 
count of the receipt and expenditure of that sum, so far as it has been 
expended, in a paper marked " CCC " : 



372 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Statement of Account. 

1873. A - rtnrt 
May 2, received SoOOO 

May 3, paid ^ 

July 11, paid... boO 

August 15, paid... ^ 

September 12, paid 8 "J 

September 30, paid ™V 

December 16, paid ^ uu 

1874. R 0n 

February 24, paid °V" 

March 30, paid J"" 

May2, paid ^ 

May 26, paid ' JUU 

Total ^ 455 ° 

I also annex two letters of March 30, 1874, from the publisher of tte 
Golden Age, which will tend to vouch the expenditure of a part of the 
above amount. They are marked " DDD " and «• EEE " respectively : 

RULAND TO MOULTON. 

The Golden Age, New York, March 30, 1874. 

[Private] 

Dear Mr. Moulton : — We are in a tight spot. Mr. is away, and 

we have no money and no paper. Can't get the latter without the 
former. We owe about $400 for paper, and the firm we have been or- 
dering from refuse to let us have any more without money. Haven't 
any paper for this week's issue. Truly yours, O. W. Ruland. 

If yon can do anything Torus, I trust you will, to help us tide over 
the chasm. 

FROM SAME TO SAME. 

The Golden Aoe, New York, March 30, 1874. 
Dear Mr. Moulton :— I am more grateful than I can tell you for the 
noble and generous way you came to the rescue of the Golden Age this 
afternoon. Truly your friend, O. W. Ruland. 

I think proper to add further that Tilton more than once said to me 
that he could and would receive nothing from Beecher in the way of 
pecuniary assistance. I remember one special instance in which the 
subject was discussed between us. Beecher had told me that he was 
willing to furnish money to pay the expenses of Tilton and his family in 
travelling abroad, in order that Tilton might be saved from the constant 
state of irritation which arose from the rumors he was daily hearing. I 
rather hinted at than informed Tilton of this fact, and he repelled even 
the intimation of such a thing with the utmost indignation and anger. 
Therefore I only undertook the disbursement of this sum at the most 
earnest and voluntary request of Mr. Beecher. 

As I have brought before the committee the somewhat collateral 
matter of the letters of Mrs. Woodhull to Beecher to influence him into 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 373 

the support of her doctrines and herself socially, which I thought but just 
to him, it seems but equally just that I should make as a part of my 
statement a letter, that came into my possession at the time it was writ- 
ten, from Til ton to a friend in the West — and not for the purpose of 
publication — explaining his position in regard to Mrs. Woodhull and the 
injurious publication made against him and his family and Mr. Beecher. 
The letter I here produce, marked " FFF 1 " : 

TILTON TO A FEIEND IN THE WEST. 

174 Livingston Street, Brooklyn, December 31, 1872. 

My Dear Friend: — I owe you a long letter. 1 am unwell and a pris- 
oner in the house, leaning back in leather-cushioned idleness, and writing 
on my chair-board before the fire. Perhaps you wonder that 1 have a 
fire, or anything but a hearthstone broken and crumbled, since the world 
has been told that my household is in ruins. And yet it is more like 
your last letter — brimful of love and wit, and sparkling like a fountain 
in midwinter. 

Nevertheless you are right. I am in trouble ; and I hardly see a path 
out of it. 

It is just two years ago to-day — this very day — the last of the year — 
that Mr. Bowen lifted his hammer, and with an unjust blow smote 
asunder my two contracts, one with the Independent and the other with 
the Brooklyn Union. The public little suspects that this act of his 
turned on his fear to meet the consequences of horrible charges which 
he made against Henry Ward Beecher. I have kept quiet on the sub- 
ject for two years through an unwillingness to harm others even for the 
sake of righting myself before the public. But having trusted to time 
for my vindication. I find that time has only thickened my difficulties 
until these now buffet me like a.storm. 

You know that. Bowen long- ago paid to me the assessed pecuniary 
damages which grew out of his breaking of the contracts, and gave me 
a written vindication of my course, and something like an apology for 
his. This settlement, so far as I am concerned, is final. 

But Bowen's assassinating dagger drawn against Beecher has proved 
as unable as Macbeth's to -'trammel up the consequence." And the 
consequence is that the air of Brooklyn is rife with stories against its 
chief clergyman, not growing out of the Woodhull scandal merely, but 
exhaled with ever-fresh foulness, like mephitic vapors, from Bowen's own 
chnvire against Beecher. 

Verily, the tongue is a wild beast that no man can tame, and like a 
wolf it is now seeking to devour the chief shepherd of the flock, to- 
gether also with my own pretty lambs. 

For the last four or fi\-e weeks, or ever since I saw the WoorlhuU 
libel, I have hardly had a restful day; and I frequently dream the whole 
thing over at night, waking the next morning unfit for work. 

Rave you any conception of what it is to suffer the keenest possible 
injustice ? If not, come and learn of me. 

To say nothing of the wrong and insult to my wife, in whose sorrow 
I have greater sorrow. 1 have to bear the additional indignity of being 
misconstrued by half the public and by many friends. 

For instance, it is supposed that I had a conspirator's hand in this 
unholy business, whereas I am as innocent of it as of the Nathan 
murder. 



I 
374 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

It is hinted that the libellous article was actually written by me ; 
whereas (being in the north of New Hampshire) I did not know of its 
existence till a week after it had convulsed my own city and family. My 
wife never named it in her letters to me lest it should spoil my mood for 
public speaking. (You know I was then toiling day and night for Mr. 
(jlreeley's sake.) 

Then, too, it is the sneer of the clubs that I have degenerated into an 
apostle of free love ; whereas the whole body of my writings stands like 
a monument against this execrable theory. 

Moreover, it is charged that I am in financial and other relations 
with Mrs. Woodhull ; whereas I have not spoken to, nor met, nor seen 
her for nearly a year. 

The history of my acquaintance with her is this : In the spring of 
1871, a few months alter Bowen charged Beecher with the most hideous 
crime known to human nature, and had slammed the door of the Inde- 
pendent in my face, and when 1 was toiling like Hercules to keep the 
scandal from the public, then it was that Mrs. "VVoodhull, hitherto a 
total stranger to me. suddenly sent for me and poured into my ears, not 
the Bowen scandal, but a new one of her own, namely, almost the same 
identical tale which she printed a few weeks ago. Think of it ! When 
I was doing my best to suppress one earthquake. Mrs. Woodhull sud- 
denly stood before me portentous with another. What was I to do ? I 
resolved at all hazards to keep back the new avalanche until I could se- 
curely tie up the original Btorm. My fear was that she would publish 
what'she told to me, and, to prevent this catastrophe, I resolved (and, 
as the result proves, like a fool, and yet with a fool's innocent and pure 
motive) to make her such a friend of mine that she would never think 
of doing me, such a harm. So 1 rendered her some important services 
(including especially some labors of pen and ink), all with a view to put 
and hold her under an obligation to me and mine. 

In so acting towards her I found to my glad surprise and astonish- 
ment that she rose almost as high in my estimation as she had done 
with Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Isabella Beecher Hooker, 
and other excellent women. Nobody who has not met Mrs. Woodhull 
can have an adequate idea of the admirable impression which she is 
capable of producing on serious persons. Moreover, J. felt that the 
current denunciations against her were outrageously unjust, and that, 
like myself, she had been put in a false position before the public, and 
I sympathized keenly with the aggravation of spirit which this pro- 
duces. This fact lent a zeal to nil I said in her defence. 

Nor was it until after I had known her for a number of months, and 
when I discovered her purpose to libel a dozen representative women 
of the suffrage movement, that I suddenly opened my eyes to her real 
tendencies to mischief; and then it was that I indignantly repudiated 
her acquaintance, and have never seen her since. 

Hence her late tirade. 

Well, it is over, and / am left to be the chief sufferer in the public 
estimation. 

What to do in the emergency (which is not clearing but clouding 
itself daily) I have not yet decided. 

What I coidd do would be to take from my writing-desk and publish 
to-morrow morning the prepared narrative and vindication, which, with 
facts and documents, my legal advisers pronounce complete. 

This would explain and clarify everything, both great and small 
(including the Woodhull episode, which is but a minor part of the whole 



THE BKOOKLYN SCANDAL. 375 

case), but if I publish it I must not only violate a kind of honorable 
obligation to be silent, which I had voluntarily imposed upon myself, 
but I must put my old friend Bowen to a serious risk of being smitten 
dead by Beecher's hand. 

How far Bowen would deserve his fate I cannot say; but I know that 
all Plymouth Church would hunt him as a rat. 

Well, perhaps the future will unravel my skein for me without my own 
hand ; out whatever happens to my weather-beaten self, I wish to you, 

prosperous comrade, a happy New Year. Fraternally yours, 

Theodore Tilton. 
P. S. — Before sending this long letter (which pays my debt to you), 
T have read it to my wife, who desires to supplement it by sending her 
love and good-will to the little white cottage and its little red cheeks. 

The first intimation of the insanity of Tilton arose in this wise : Prior 
to Sunday, March 29, 1874, a publication was made of a statement by a 
reporter of the Brooklyn Union purporting to be the result of an inter- 
view with Mr. Thomas G. Shearman, Clerk of Plymouth Church, to the 
effect — T quote from memory — that Tilton was insane, and that he stated 
that Mrs. Tilton had mediumistic fits — whatever disease that may be — 
in which she had stated matters affecting the character of Beecher, and 
to the statement of neither of them, for that reason, was any credit to 
be given. This publication, as it tended not only to excite Tilton to a 
defence of his sanity, but also, as coming from the Clerk of Plymouth 
Church, might be supposed to be an authoritative expression of its 
pastor, annoyed Beecher very much, and he wrote the following letter, 
marked " FFF 2," which I herewith produce: 

BEECHEK TO MOULTON. 

Sunday Night, March 29, 1874. 

My Dear Frank : — Is there to be no end of trouble ? Is wave to fol- 
low wave in endless succession? I was cut to the heart when C. showed 
me that shameful paragraph from the Union. Its cruelty is beyond de- 
scription. I felt like lying down and saying : "I am tired — tired — tired 
of living, or of trying to resist the devil of mischief." I would rather 
have had a javelin launched against me a hundred times than against 
those that have suffered so much. The shameful indelicacy of bringing 
the most sacred relations into such publicity fills me with horror. 

But there are some slight alleviations. The paragraph came when 
the public mind was engaged with the Council and with Theodore's let- 
ters. I hope it will pass without further notice. If it is not taken up by 
other papers, it will sink out of sight and be forgotten; whereas, if it be 
assailed, it may give it a conspicuity-that it never would have had. But 

1 shall write Shearman a letter, and give him my full feeling about it. 
I must again [be], as I have heretofore been, indebted to you for a judi- 
cious counsel on this new and flagrant element. My innermost soul 
longs for peace ; and if that cannot be, for death, that will bring peace. 
My fervent hope is that this drop of gaii may sink through out of sight, 
and not prove a mortal poison. Yours ever, H. W. Beecher. 

I have written strongly to Shearman, and hope that he will send a 
letter to T. unsolicited. I am sick — head, heart and body, but must 
move on. I feel this morning like letting things go by the run ! 



376 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

The letter of retraction, as proposed by Tilton, not being forthcoming-, 
I felt it my duty, in his interest, to take such measures as should result 
in an apology from Shearman to Tilton. I accordingly carried to him a 
copy of the paper having the article, and laid it upon his desk in his 
c ffice, and said to him that if the statements in this article were not actu- 
ally made by him lie ought to retract them. Although it lay on his desk 
lie said to me that he had not seen the article and did not mean to see 
it. I told him that he must see it, and if it was not true he must say so. 
He said he didn't want to read it and wouldn't read it. I then left him. 
Afterwards I saw Tilton and told him what I had done, and he said, 
" We will go up together," which we did, and met Mr. Shearman. Mr. 
T.ilton called his attention to the statement in the Brooklyn Union as 
having come from him (Shearman), concerning himself and his wife, 
that one was crazy and the other subject to medinmistic fits. Said he, 
" Mr. Shearman, this is untrue, and if you are not correctly reported 
your simple duty is to say so ; and if you have made such a statement I 
demand that you retract and apologize. If you do not, I shall hold you 
responsible in any way I can for such injurious statement." Shearman 
then read the paragraph in the Union, and made an explanation in this 
wise: that he might probably have repeated to somebody a story which 
Tilton had told him of the medinmistic states of Mrs. Woodhull, and 
perhaps have made the mistake of using Mrs. Tilton's name instead of 
Mrs. Woodhull's. Tilton said to him, " Mr. Shearman, you know that 
you are deliberately uttering falsehood, and I won't allow you to think 
even that you can deceive me by such a statement as you are making- 
now. You must make such an explanation of this statement in the 
Union as shall be satisfactory to me, or, as I said before, I shall hold you 
responsible." During the first part of this conversation Mr. Shearman 
called in a witness from his outer office, but when the conversation be- 
came earnest and Tilton began charging him with an untruth, Shearman 
bid the witness retire, which he did. Tilton and I then left the office. 

Within a few days of this interview Tilton procured the affidavit of 
the reporter of the Union that the statement that Shearman had been 
reported as making he did in fact make. On March 30 Shearman sent 
to me for delivery to Tilton a note, of which I produce a copy under 
that date, marked " GGG." The original was delivered up to Shearman 
afterwards : 

SHEARMAN TO TILTON. 

Brooklyn, March 30, 1874. 

Dear Sir : — My attention has been called to a newspaper paragraph 
which I have not seen, but which I am told is to the effect that I stated 
to a reporter that you had described Mrs. Tilton as having, in a medinm- 
istic or clairvoyant state, made some extraordinary statements of a 
painful nature. 

I have for some years past made it a rule never to send corrections to 



THE BROOKLYN" SCANDAL. 377 

newspapers of anything relating to myself, no matter how erroneous 
such statements may be. 

But I have no objection to saying to you personally that this story, 
if correctly quoted here, appears to be an erroneous version of the one 
and only statement which I had from you over a year ago, viz. : that 
Mrs. Woodhull did exactly the thing here attributed to Mrs. Tilton. 

I do not know that I ever repeated that story in the presence of any 
reporter for the paper in question, but 1 have done so in the presence 
of others, and I may of course, by an unconscious mistake, have used 
your wife's name in the place of another and wholly different person. 
If so, I beg that you will assure Mrs. Tilton of my great regret for such 
an error. Yours obediently, T. G. Shearman. 

"When I took this note to Tilton he refused to receive it, saying : "I 
will not receive any such note from Shearman. He knows it contains 
a falsehood and I cannot take it from him. You may carry it back to 
him." I did so. and stated to himTiltous answer. Afterwards he sub- 
stituted for that note another, under date of April 2, 1874, which is 
here produced, marked "EHH": 

SHEARMAN TO TILTOX. 

Brooklyn, April 2, 1874. 

Dear Sir : — Having seen a paragraph in the Brooklyn Union of Sat- 
urday last, containing a report of a statement alleged to have been made 
by me concerning your family and yourself, I desire to assure you that 
this report is seriously incorrect, and that I have never authorized such 
a statement. 

It is unnecessary to repeat here what I have actually said upon these 
subjects, because I am now satisfied that what I did say was erroneous, 
and that the rumors to which I gave some credit were without founda- 
tion. I deeply regret having been misled into an act of unintentional 
injustice, and am glad to take the earliest occasion to rectify it. 

I beg. therefore, to withdraw all that I said upon the occasion referred 
to as incorrect (although then believed by me), and to repudiate entirely 
the statement imputed to me as untrue and unjust to all parties con- 
cerned. Yours, obediently, T. G. Shearman. 

Theodore Tilton, Esq. 

In no part of that negotiation did Mr. Shearman suggest to me that 
there were any doubts as to Tilton's sanity, and denied both to me and 
to him that he had ever said anything to the contrary, or that Mrs. 
Tilton was in any way incapacitated from telling the truth by reason 
of mediumistic fits or other physical disability. Shearman's action was 
communicated to Beecher ; but meanwhile it had come to be spread 
about that Beecher had made a similar accusation as to the sanity of 
Mr. and Mrs. Tilton to that of Shearman. 

A member of your committee, Mr. Cleveland, communicated the fact 
to Beecher, to which Beecher made an indignant denial, as appears by 
his note to Mr. Cleveland, who communicated a copy of it to me in a 
note under date of April 2, which I here produce, marked " III " : 



378 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

BEECHER TO CLEVELAND. 

[Copy.] 

My Dear Cleveland :— You say that I am supposed to have reported 
to some members of the Council substantially the same story that is 
attributed to Shearman. 

How can any human being that knows me believe any such impossi- 
bility ? 1 never opened my lips to any human being on the subject. L 
will defy any man to face me and say that by word, look, or intimation 
I ever alluded to it. I have been as dumb as the dead. They that dure 
to say I have spoken of it are liars, if they mean to themselves, and the 
bearers of lies if they received it from others. 

I have a feeling too profoundly sacred to make such sacrilege possible. 

April 2, 1874. H. W. Beecher. 

CLEVELAND TO MOULTON. 

Frank Moulton, Esq. 

Dear Sir : — Herewith you have copy of a note received from Mr. 
Beecher respecting the matter of which it speaks. 

Not seeing you when I called this a. m.. and leaving the city. I send 
by Mr. Halliday. Mr. Beecher wants to see you before or after the 
meeting this evening. Truly yours, II. M. Cleveland. 

Having retained the friendship of the principal parties to this con- 
troversy down to to-day, I have not thought it proper to produce here- 
with any letters that I have received from either of them excepting the 
single one exonerating me from blame and showing Mrs. Tilton's confi- 
dence in me, which I thought was due to myself to do because of the 
peculiar statement attributed to her ; nor have I produced any papers 
or proposals for a settlement of this controversy since it has broken out 
afresh, and since the publication of Tilton's letter to Dr. Bacon and the 
call of Beecher for a committee ; nor have I since then furnished to 
either party, although called upon by both, any documents in my pos- 
session that one might use the same against the other. I have en- 
deavored to hold myself strictly as a mediator between them, and my 
endeavor has been, even down to the very latest hour, to have all the 
scandals arising out of the publication of the facts of their controversies 
and wrongs buried out of sight, deeming it best that it should be so 
done, not only for the good of the parties concerned and their families, 
but that of the community at large. 

If any evidence were needed that, in the interest of the parties, and 
especially of Beecher. I was endeavoring to the latest hour to prevent 
the publication of all these documents and this testimony, and that I 
retained the confidence of at least one of the parties in that endeavor, I 
produce a letter of July 13. 1874, being a note arranging a meeting be- 
tween myself and Beecher in regard to this controversy. It is marked 
"JJJ": 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 379 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

July 13, 1874. 
My Dear Frank : — I will be with you at seven, or a little before. 
I am ashamed to put a straw more upon you, and have but a single 
consolation — that the matter cannot distress you long, as it must soon 
end ; that is, there will be no more anxiety about the future, whatever 
regrets there may be for the past. Truly yours and ever. 

II. W. Beecher. 

If there is any paper or fact supposed by either of the parties, or by 
the committee, to be in my possession which will throw any further 
light upon the subject of your inquiry, I shull be most willing to pro- 
duce it if I have it, although I do not believe that there is any such ; 
and I am ready to answer any proper question which shall be put to me 
in the way of cross-examination by any of the parties concerned or their 
counsel, as fully as my memory or any data I have will serve, so that all 
the facts may be known. For if any part of them be known, I deem it 
but just to truth and right that all should be known. As, however, 
controversy has already arisen as to the correctness of the reports of 
evidence taken before the committee, I must ask leave, if any cross- 
examination is to be had orally, to be accompanied by my own ste- 
nographer, who shall take down the evidence I may give as a necessary 
measure for my own protection. 

Leaving to your committee, without comment, the facts and docu- 
ments herewith presented, 

I have the honor to remain yours truly, 

Francis D. Moulton. 

The following extracts from the New York journals 
will show the manner in which Mr. Moulton's state- 
ment was received by the public. The Graphic repre- 
sents the sentiments of Mr. Moulton and his friends. 
The other papers quoted represent the general senti- 
ment of the better class of the American people : 

{Daily Graphic, August 21, 1874.) 
This statement speaks for itself. Here are original documents 
that Beecher and his lawyers supposed were destroyed. Here 
are letters written in the heat of excitement, or under the pres- 
sure of great emergencies, showing the flutter of the heart, the 
agitation, the anguish of the writers — letters all the more 
valuable as testimony because they bear indirectly on the case, 
and presuppose a revolting crime. They can be accounted for 



380 



THE TRUE HISTORY OF 




NEW YORK PEDESTRIANS READING MR. MOULTON's STATEMENT. 



in no other way. They have no excuse and no meaning but in 
the confessed criminality they were written to conceal. Mr. 
Moulton's accompanying explanations are simple, self-consistent, 
and consistent with the facts that have been brought to light, 
and so stamped with the impress of truth that no unprejudiced 
mind can reject the statement. Whatever their legal value 
may be, their moral effect is overwhelming. No one can read 
this statement without being convinced that the first preacher 
in America has been guilty of a foul and dastardly wrong, and 
has doubled the original crime by his efforts to hide it. If 
these documents are genuine and trustworthy, Mr. Moulton is 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 381 

amply vindicated, and stands before the world as a generous, 
brave, chivalric man, who has sacrificed himself for years to 
defend and sustain one who now appears in the light of a liar, 
a libertine, and a sneak. 

These documents are full of revelations. Mrs. Tilton has 
told the world how she distrusted Mr. Moulton from the first, 
and shrank from having anything to do with him. On the 
other hand, it appears that she treated him as a warm friend ; 
urged him to visit her house; made him her confidant, and 
even changed the name of her youngest boy from Ralph to 
Frank, as an expression of her regard for Mr. Moulton, and of 
her gratitude for his kind offices. And her friendship continued 
down to the time of her withdrawal from her husband. The 
distrust was on the other side. These documents show, too, 
how it was that Mrs. Woodhull got herself entangled in the 
meshes of this complex web, and who it was that urged and 
entreated Moulton and Tilton to keep her from publishing her 
version of the black and blasting tale. Blamed they may justly 
be for the steps they took to inveigle her into silence; but the 
reason of their efforts is plain, and the hand that pushed them 
on is now ungloved. The community, as one man, condemns 
her corrupt and godless theories. What of the man who has 
put them in practice ? 

This journal has been severely censured for its apparent hos- 
tility to Mr. Beecher in this contest. It is the only daily 
journal in New York that from the first has contended for a 
free, full, impartial investigation of this case in order that the 
truth should be known and justice be done. We have no interest 
in sustaining Beecher, nor Tilton, nor any other man, save so 
far as he deserves support, and we have no interest in the 
downfall of any man except as truth and justice require his ex- 
posure. The truth is of more consequence than a thousand 
Tiltons and Beechers rolled into one. This paper was started 
and has been carried on from the beginning to tell the truth, 
without respect to persons, positions, or respectabilities. It is 
the office and function of the Daily Graphic to expose all shams 
and smite down all hypocrisies. If Mr. Beecher falls, it will 



382 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

be in consequence of his own folly. If lie goes down, it will 
be through his own madness. If the arrow of almighty justice 
rankles in his quivering heart, it is because he has not worn the 
armor of righteousness under the surplice of the clergyman, but 
has played the libertine while he has acted the priest. 

The curse is on the crime and not on the exposure of it. If 
he has been guilty of the acts with which he stands charged ; 
if he has resorted to all possible arts and devices for years to 
conceal his debaucheries ; if he has now turned upon and tried 
to crush both the man he has wronged and the one friend of 
all others who has kept him from ruin if not self-destruction ; 
if these letters, stamped with the impress of veracity and palpi- 
tating with the anxiety and agony of the hearts that wrote 
them, are to be believed ; if a chain of circumstantial evidence 
strong enough to send any man on earth to the gallows for a 
capital offence has any binding force whatever, Mr. Beecher 
ought never to be permitted to enter a Christian pulpit again 
save as a penitent to lay his hand on his mouth and bury his 
mouth in the cushion to cry " Unclean." To write this sen- 
tence costs an indescribable pang. The transcendent abilities, 
the indisputable genius, the unrivalled eloquence of this great 
pulpit orator have made him the pride and idol of the nation. 
Millions have listened to him with admiration, and been thrilled 
by his speech to rapture or to tears. His printed words have 
been the delight and the religion of the people of America and 
England for twenty years. He has identified his name and 
fame with this community, and his name is a household word. 
The fall of such a man from such a pedestal smites all hearts 
with unutterable sorrow. The eye glazes at the thought. 
The heart weeps in spite of itself at what seems a national 
calamity. But his fall is inevitable unless he proves that he is 
innocent by some evidence more decisive than has yet been 
offered. 

{The World, August 22, 1874.) 
Moulton admits that several thousand dollars of Mr. Beecher's 
money went through his hands to Tilton to keep the Golden 
Age alive and to relieve Tilton's personal necessities. He pub- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 383 

lishes a letter from Tilton refusing a loan from Moulton of 
$1,000. He invites the public to believe that Tilton did not 
know the money which he did accept came from Mr. Beecher. 
This confession of vicarious blackmail disposes of Moulton and 
Tilton. No man lives whose repute can be harmed by the 
allegations of men that have blackmailed him. From that 
kind of damage from such a quarter civilized society will pro- 
tect all its members, even if it cannot protect men from the 
damage they do themselves. 

Innocent men have paid blackmail. Guilty men have paid 
blackmail. We presume no blackmailer ever affirmed the inno- 
cence of the victimized persons. Moulton affirms that both 
Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton confessed to him their criminal 
conversation. That charge was to have been expected. What 
evidence does he bring of the truth of that statement ? None. 
What breach does he make in the thread of Mr. Beecher's nar- 
rative and its explanations of the letters hitherto published ? 
None. What new letters does he bring into the case ? Here 
it is that this confessed almoner of hush-moneys is an interesting 
witness, whatever his untrustworthiness. Unwittingly he throws 
a flood of light upon parts of the narrative which Mr. Beecher, 
whether he knew it or not, had left in twilight. 

First in respect of Mrs. Tilton. That person may thank 
Mr. Moulton for demonstrating by her letters to him (published 
without her request, we suppose, by this " mutual friend/' this 
chivalrous soul of honor) — demonstrating beyond all possible 
contradiction her utter incapacity to speak the truth about any- 
thing or anybody in the presence of Tilton. Many of the letters 
in her handwriting bear on their face the proof of her mere 
mediumship. Some, it is admitted, were extorted from her. 
But the truth bursts out in her letters to Moulton, especially in 
that marked " JJ," where she confesses to two falsehoods, left 
him in doubt whether the letter itself was not a third, says she 
was obliged to lie to him, and that " it was a physical impos- 
sibility for her to tell the truth." " I am a perfect coward in 
his presence, not from any fault of his, perhaps, but from long 
years of timidity ." 



384 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

The picture which the forlorn creature painted of herself in 
her denial, which Tilton, the fine fellow, has since tried to blur 
by publishing her love letters to him, is retouched in vivid 
colors by the " mutual friend." It is plain that she was a 
mere matrix for Tilton's torture, and gave the impress he had 
left. 

1. The first letter of Mrs. Tilton is to Moulton the morning 
after recanting to Mr. Beecher her extorted confession to Tilton. 
She asks him to destroy both and to make her request known 
" to Theodore and Mr. Beecher." No new light falls on the 
crim. con. charge, but this was a reasonable request, which 
Moulton disregarded. And it must be admitted that the de- 
struction of those two documents, while it would have buried 
the scandal, would also have thrown Moulton out of office. He 
admits giving Tilton the confession at a later period; but the 
"mutual friend" did not thereupon return to Mr. Beecher Mrs. 
Tilton's letter recanting the same, though it had been surren- 
dered to him on the ground, he himself says, that he would 
not give up the confession to Tilton and must needs have both 
to mediate with power. This is an extraordinary confession 
of betrayal of trust. Moulton confesses it as placidly as he con- 
fesses the vicarious blackmailing. 

2. The "DD," "EE" letters throw no light on the crim. 
con. charge. The latter looks as if stamped on Mrs. Tilton by 
Tilton's boot-heel, to clear himself of a charge which neither 
we nor the public have any interest in. 

3. Three letters follow, alleged to be from Mrs. Tilton to 
Mr. Beecher after it had been agreed that they should commu- 
nicate only through what Mr. Beecher, in the Plymouth lingo, 
called "a priest in the new sanctuary of reconciliation," to wit, 
Moulton. That they do not disclose crim. con. may be inferred 
from the fact that Mr. Beecher handed them over to Moulton 
when he might have destroyed them and nobody been the wiser. 
The first prays for "getting back to old Plymouth" Church, 
and she will thank the dear (Heavenly) Father, — which is mis- 
placed piety if the pastor was a priestly seducer. The second 
asks Mr. Beecher to have Moulton destroy her two papers, and 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 385 

says, "My heart bleeds night and day at the injustice of their 
existence." " Injustice" to whom if the case was crim. con.? 
Except that Mrs. Tiiton if guilty might have sent the letter 
a GG " to Mr. Beecher to make a case, its four lines would be 
conclusive in proof of no crim. con. As it is they are merely 
weighty in that sense. The last letter, " HH," Moulton is 
shocked by, he tells us, after reading into it a sense which is 
neither necessary nor probable and which may mean any one 
of fifty decent things as well as the indecency of Moulton's 
gloss. 

4. The letter " II " throws no new light on the main ques- 
tion. The letter "JJ" is the letter we have already alluded 
to "as an effort made for truth " by a wretched thing who could 
but lie in the presence of her master. 

5. The letter " KK " begins, " For my husband's sake and 
my children's I hereby testify with all my woman's soul that I 
am innocent of the crime of impure conduct alleged against me. 
I have been to my husband a true wife ; in his love I wish to 
live and die." . . . "I bless him every day for his faith 
in me which swerves not." Moulton says this was a lie written 
to enable him to lie to people and say she was innocent when 
he knew she was guilty of crim. con. Like the next letter, 
" LL," its very lines run crooked under Tilton's torture. The 
one proves her innocence as little as the other proves her guilt. 
The last letter of Mrs. Tiiton, " MM," has no significance in 
respect to the main issue. 

A few new letters from Mr. Beecher are brought forward by 
Moulton, and with the letters of Mrs. Tiiton comprise all that 
he contributes to the case, except the effort to construe them in 
a guilty sense contrary to that of the explanations made in Mr. 
Beecher's narrative. It is notable that letters so frank, fluent, 
gushing even, should nowhere contain the unmistakable proof 
of the guilt which Moulton endeavors to put between their 
lines. Mrs. Hooker's letters, while showing that a sister of 
Mr. Beecher, who was intimate with Mrs. Wood hull, believed 
him guilty, contain a letter from Mr. Beecher himself to his 
sister which is of interest. It is two years ago nearly that he 
25 



386 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

wrote, "If you still believe in that woman you cannot help me. 
... I do not need much help. I tread the falsehoods into the 
dirt from whence they spring and go on my way rejoicing. . . . 
I abide in peace, committing myself to Him who gave himself 
for me. . . . The specks of truth are mere spangles upon a 
garment of falsehood." 

The other letters of Mr. Beecher, as any one may see by run- 
ning through the long-winded statement and picking them out, 
cast no new light whatever and show nothing but what has 
been abundantly shown already — the desire of Mr. Beecher to 
suppress the present outbreak. But the letter marked WW, 
if genuine, shows in what way Mr. Beecher thinks Dr. Storrs 
labored for the blessing promised to peacemakers. 

All Mr. Beecher's and Mrs. Tilton's letters now made public 
go to prove that Tilton and Moulton fired every shot in their 
common locker in the first Tilton indictment, which, indeed, by 
its garbling and its omissions, was more damaging than the 
whole letters and documents since published prove to be. Not 
one item of actual evidence or trustworthy testimony has been 
brought forth by Moulton which adds a new difficulty or in- 
consistency to the explanation already put forth by Mr. Beecher 
in his narrative and cross-examination. 

(New York Tribune, August 22, 1874.) 
Mr. Francis D. Moulton has at last given to the public the 
statement which he refused to give to the committee. It is the 
product of long labor and consultation with lawyers, and it is 
put forth with an air of solemnity which seems to portend ruin 
and desolation. What might have been its effect had it appeared 
a month ago, we will not stop to conjecture; but coming so late, 
and under circumstances so gravely suspicious, it will require a 
very cautious examination. Certainly, it is very far from justi- 
fying the fears of Mr. Beecher's friends or the exultant prophe- 
cies of his enemies. The witness who was supposed to hold the 
key of the situation leaves the posture of affairs substantially 
unchanged. Those who believed in Mr. Beecher's innocence 
before will believe in it still. Those who waited for further 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 387 

developments must be content to wait a while longer. It is 
evident that the assailants discharged their worst missiles at the 
opening of the engagement. Mr. Moulton cites very few addi- 
tional documents of any importance, and none that are half so 
damaging on their face as the letters already published. He 
quotes one or two which tend to confirm the theory that Til- 
ton's original charge against Mr. Beecher was not adultery, 
but improper solicitation. He makes it as clear as day that 
Tilton's sensitiveness on the subject of his wife's honor rose and 
fell with his pecuniary fortunes ; began when he lost his engage- 
ments on the Independent and Brooklyn Union; slept while 
the $5000 paid by Mr. Beecher to the Golden Age held out ; 
and became ungovernable when the money was all gone and 
Mr. Beecher (as he himself says) refused to furnish any more. 
If the public still cherish any delusion as to Mrs. Tilton's value 
as a witness on either side, it will doubtless be dispelled by Mr. 
Moulton 's citations from her contradictory letters. If any 
further proof is wanted that Mrs. Hooker and her choice com- 
panions eagerly believed the scandalous story published by 
Mrs. Woodhull, it will be found in the batch of family letters 
which Mr. Moulton takes the amazing liberty of incorporating 
in his statement. Some very curious light is furthermore 
thrown upon the business habits of Mr. Henry C. Bowen, and 
Mr. Tilton is shown to have made already $12,000 out of the 
alleged immoralities of Mr. Beecher, getting $5000 from that 
gentleman himself, and $7000 from Mr. Bowen. All these 
things give Mr, Moulton's statement not only interest but 
importance. 

When we come to inquire, however, what evidence it supplies 
that is pertinent to the issue we shall soon exhaust it. Mr. 
Moulton tells the story of his connection with the case substan- 
tially as it has been told before. Many of the incidents are 
repeated almost exactly as Mr. Beecher described them, only 
with a few half perceptible touches Moulton gives them a much 
darker coloring. He declares, however, that on the occasion of 
the dictation of the famous apology Mr. Beecher frankly con- 
fessed the crime of adultery. He declares that Mrs. Tilton 



388 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

made to him a similar confession. " Mrs. Tilton," he says, 
"has more than once admitted to me and to another person to 
my knowledge — whom I do not care to bring into this con- 
troversy — the fact of her sexual relations witli Beecher, and 
she has never once denied them other than in the written 
papers prepared for a purpose, which I have already exhibited ; 
but on the contrary, the fact of such criminal intercourse being 
well understood by Beecher, Tilton, and Mrs. Tilton to have 
taken place, my whole action in the matter was based upon the 
existence of that fact." There is no other testimony on the 
main issue. We have simply the word of Mr. Moulton, forti- 
fied by no documents more satisfactory than those that have 
already been published and discussed. We have heard a great 
deal lately about other letters in Mr. Moulton's possession, 
letters of passion, letters of assignation, letters which bore the 
unmistakable traces of guilt in every line ; but if he holds any 
such damning evidence, he has kept it in his desk ; there is no 
trace of it in this huge statement into which he empties the 
accumulation of filth, meanness and hypocrisy whereof he has 
been the custodian. Surely, after all this delay, all this 
manoeuvring for the last word, we are justified in supposing 
that the accusers have done their worst. The issue, then, is 
between the word of Mr. Beecher on the one hand and the 
word of Mr. Moulton on the other. In adjusting the balance 
between them, we have, of course, to take into consideration the 
character of the two men. We must also consider the circum- 
stances of the two men. Mr. Beecher is struggling for his 
life. If he cannot repel this charge, explain his unfortunate 
letters, and give a rational excuse for the cowardice and pitiful 
subterfuges which seem to have filled his last four years, he is 
ruined forever. He can never look an honest man in the 
face again. His will be such a fall as no modern pulpit 
has ever known, a disgrace from which there can be no re- 
covery this side the grave. He is an innocent man, or else 
a desperate man. But the case of Mr. Tilton is not less 
critical, and Moulton will stand or fall with his friend. If they 
cannot substantiate the chnrge which they have been pressing 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 389 

so fiercely against Mr. Beecher they are both irretrievably 
ruined. 

It would have helped us to a fair judgment of Mr. Moul- 
ton's credibility if he had explained how it happened that when 
Mr. Beecher proposed to " write for the public a statement [of 
the scandal] that would bear the light of the judgment day," 
he wrote in dissuading him, " You can stand if the whole case 
were published to-morrow." It would have been well, also, if 
he had defended himself from t»he charge of taking hush-money. 
That terrible accusation remains practically unanswered ; nay, 
Mr. Moulton admits that he obtained $5000 from Mr. Beecher 
for Tilton's benefit, and. spent it on the Golden Age without 
telling Tilton where it came from. And Mr. Tilton apparently 
had no curiosity to know. On the other hand we have, not 
testimony, but the suggestion of testimony bearing upon the 
credibility of Mr. Beecher. The old stories about the immor- 
alities of the pastor of Plymouth Church, which Mr. Bo wen 
was accused of propagating some years ago, are brought for- 
ward again. They were used by Tilton in forcing Mr. Bowen 
to settle his claim for $7000. They were discussed at an inter- 
view between Tilton, Bowen and Oliver Johnson, in December, 
1870; and Mr. Moulton prints a memorandum in which Mr. 
Johnson is made to say that " H. C. B. at this interview plainly 
declared that H. W. B. had confessed his guilt to H. C. B." 
If this statement is incorrect, Mr. Bowen or Mr. Johnson will 
perhaps say so. 

Meanwhile, the case remains before the same patient public 
which has followed it so long with sorrowful curiosity. In- 
credible weaknesses have been disclosed in it, and terrible blun- 
ders have been made by the defence at every stage of its 
progress. But we mistake the wisdom and justice of the peo- 
ple if the great preacher and beloved pastor is condemned 
without much stronger evidence than Mr. F. D. Moulton seems 
able to produce. 



3J3 THE TRUE HISTOJJ* OF 

XXV. 

BESSIE TURNER'S EVIDENCR 

Mr. Moulton having introduced into his statement one of 
the witnesses — a Miss Bessie Turner — examined by the com- 
mittee, that body at once made public her evidence, which is as 
follows, the introductory extracts being from Moulton's state- 
ment, and the testimony appended being that of the girl Bessie, 
as given before the committee : 

It will be observed that in the letter of Mrs. Morse she says Tiltou 

had sent with the others away. I purposely omit the name of this 

young 1 girl. There was a reason why it was desirable that she should 
be away from Brooklyn. That reason, as given me by Mr. and Mrs. 
Tilton, was this : She had overheard conversations by them concerning 
Mrs. Tilton's criminal intimacy with Beecher, and she had reported 
these conversations to several friends of the family. Being young, and 
not knowing the consequences of her prattling, it seemed proper, for the 
safety of the two families, that she should be sent to a distance to 
school, which was accordingly done. She was put at a boarding-school 
at the West, and the expenses of her stay there were privately paid 
through me by Beecher, to whom I had stated the difficulty of having 
the girl remain in Brooklyn, and he agreed with us that it was best that 
she should be removed and offered to be at the cost of her schooling 
The bills were sent to me from time to time as they became due. a part 
of them through Mrs. Tilton. Previous to her going away she wrote 
the following letters to Mrs. Tilton —marked " W " and "X" — and they 
were sent to me by Mrs. T. as part of these transactions : 



TO MRS. TILTON. 



Brooklyn, January 10, 1871. 
My Dear Mrs. Tilton :— I want to tell you something. Your 
mother, Mrs. Morse, has repeatedly attempted to hire me by offering 
me dresses and presents to go to certain persons and tell them stories 
injurious to the character of your husband. I have been persuaded that 
the kind attentions shown me by Mr. Tilton for years were dishonorable 
demonstrations. I never at the time thought that Mr. Tilton's caresses 
were for such a purpose. I do not want to be made use of by Mrs. 
Morse or any one else to bring trouble on my two best friends, you and 
your husband. Bye by, 

THE TESTIMONY. 

By Mr. Tracy— Wero you formerly intimate in Mr. Theodore Tilton's 
family, in Brooklyn ? A. Yes, sir. 
Q. How long? A. For eight years. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 391 

Q. When did you leave there for the last lime ? A. In February, 
1871. 

Q. And you have been there eight years, then ? A. Yes, sir, as near 
as 1 can remember. It may have been longer. 

Q. Where were they living when you went to live with them ? A. 
They were boarding with Mrs. Morse, Mrs. Tilton's mother, at No. 48 
Livingston street. 

Q. Where did they go to housekeeping ? A. At No. 174 Livingston 
street. 

Q. Their present place of residence ? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And did they reside there continuously until you left them ? A. 
Yes, sir. 

Q. Were you an adopted child ? A. Yes, sir ; I was just the same as 
one of their own family ; Mrs. Tilton has been a mother to me always ; 
she took me in when I was a child. 

Q. Will you tell us whether Mr. and Mrs. Tilton lived happily or 
otherwise when you first went with them ? A. When I first went with 
them, as I remember it, their married life was apparently happy, and I 
did not see anything for some time to the contrary. 

Mr. Winslow— That was in 1863 ? A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Tracy — How long had you been with them when you first 
noticed infelicities in their life ? A. I think about a year after they 
lived in Livingston street ; about 1865. 

Q. What did you observe ? A. Well, I observed that Mr. Tilton was 
a very selfish man, very hard, very fastidious, very difficult to please, 
very dogmatical in his manner, very irritable and unsociable in his dis- 
position; one day he would be apparently very happy some part of the 
day, and then in about an hour, it may be, he would be so cross and 
ugly that nothing and nobody could please him. 

Q. How was Mrs. Tilton? A. Mrs. Tilton was always the same — of 
a lovely and amiable disposition; I never saw an}' change in her; she 
was the most devoted wife and mother that I ever saw in my life, in 
every sense of the word ; the moment he came home she always knew 
his footstep and his ring (if he had not a night key with him), and she 
dropped her work, no matter what she was doing, and was always ready 
to minister to his comfort and bring his slippers and dressing-gown; all 
the time she was looking out for his comfort and his pleasure. 

Q. Were her habits domestic, or otherwise ? A. Remarkably domes- 
tic, considering — especially considering that she was the wife of a public 
man; if Mrs. Tilton had been a gay, worldly sort of a woman, fond of 
going into society and of going out at night and all that sort of thing, 
there might be some cause for remark ; but she is the very last person 
in the world that ought to be accused of anything like that which is now 
charged; I never heard of anything so perfectly outrageous, and it. 



392 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

seems particularly so with Mrs. Tilton, because she is such a lovely 
Christian woman, and such a devoted wife and mother ; she lives up to 
what she believes always, and has done so ; I think I can say that there 
could not be a flaw picked with Mrs. Til ton in any respect. 

Q. Well, state whether or not the difficulty continued to increase from 
the time you first observed it ? A. Yes, sir, I think it did, with Mr. 
Tilton ; I noticed Mrs. Tilton crying and sobbing whenever she was 
with him, and he had for several years (for three years anyway) a way 
of locking her up in a room and talking very loud to her ; he would go 
in and lock the door, and I would hear him scolding and swearing at 
her. and then she would cry, and I have heard her say several times, 
" Why, Theodore, I do the best I can ; you know that I make every 
dollar go just as far as I possibly can ; " she would be remonstrating with 
him in that way and crying ; or if she was not crying she was praying ; 
of course, I never said a word to a soul about it, but I knew that he was 
"treating her badly ; I have known it for several years. 

Q. Was this abuse, then, largely about money and expenditures of 
the household? A. No, sir, I don't know that it was particularly; 
after* any gentleman had been there I always noticed that he would lock 
the door and have a long talk with her ; Mr. X. used to go there Sab- 
bath evenings occasionally, and he (Mr. Tilton) always had her shut up 
in the room after Mr. X. went away ; he was very jealous of her both 
with gentlemen and ladies. 

Q. How was he jealous of her with ladies? A. I don't think he 
wanted any one to like her, particularly any one that did not show a 
very great liking for him. 

Q. Can you instance a time when you remember seeing her shut in a 
room after Mr. X. had left? A. Yes, sir; I cannot give the date; but 
some little time before I left there, one Sabbath evening, after Mr. X. 
had gone away. 

Q. What did he say when he shut her up ? Did he scold her ? A. 
I cannot say that ; the doors were shut, and I simply knew that some- 
thing was going on, that she was crying and sobbing, and that I heard 
him talking very loud ; I saw him in one instance with his fist in her 
face ; I don't know what it was about, but I know she was cowering 
down very timidly under his fist, and that he was talking very loud. 
Q. How long was that before you left ? A. About two years, I guess. 
Q. Is there anything further that you remember about their domestic 
affairs ? A. I don't know that there is anything that I can recall just 
now which I have not stated. 

Q. Did you use to see Mr. Beecher there occasionally ? A. Occa- 
sionally — yes, sir ; I think he came perhaps two or three times a month ; 
I let him in on one or two occasions. 

Q. Did you ever see anything in the conduct of Mr. Beecher and Mrs. 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 393 

Tilton to indicate any marked affection between them, or anything of 
that kind ? A. No, sir ; I never saw anything. 

Q. Not anything? A. No, sir. 

By Mr. Winslow — Where was he generally received? A. In the 
back parlor. 

Q. Did you use to see ladies there — friends of Mr. Tilton ? A. Yes, 
sir; Mrs. Stanton was a very frequent visitor there, and Miss Susan B. 

Anthony and Miss Anna Dickinson and Mrs. was there on one 

occasion ; then there were the Misses W. 

Q. When was it that the oldest Miss W. was there ? A. I think it- 
was about two or three years before I left. 

Q. How long did she stay there ? A. Some months, I think. 

Q. Did Mr. Tilton seem to be very fond of her ? A. Yes, sir ; he 
seemed to be very fond of her ; he was with her a great deal ; he used 
tc caress her and kiss her ; he was very much taken with her in every 
way ; Mrs. Tilton made it very pleasant for her ; she had t flowers on the 
table and flcwers in her room, because she was very fond of flowers ; 
Mr. Tilton use to take her riding a great deal ; he often took her to the 
theatre, and his attentions to her were so marked that it seemed to me 
Mrs. Tilton was very much neglected ; he did not seem to think of 
Mrs. Tilton though while Miss W. was around — unless somebody else 
was there. 

Q. When strangers were there how was his conduct ? A. I noticed 
particularly during the last year or so that I was there that whenever any- 
body was around that I could seem to see that he made a special effort to 
be very attentive to Mrs. Tilton — very plausible and very nice — I know 
I used to have my eyes open pretty wide sometimes ; I never said a word 
to anybody until I made statements to Mrs. Morse, Mrs. Richards and 
Mrs. Beecher, but I used to think some day this would all come out ; 1 
don't refer to this scandal, but to his treatment of Mrs. Tilton. 

A. Was he attentive to other ladies that visited there besides this 
Miss W. ? A. Well, his attention was never as marked, I think, with 
any other ladies that were there, unless it was with Mrs. Stanton and 
Miss Anthony. 

Q. How was it with them ? A. He seemed to think a great deal of 
Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony; I saw her sitting on his lap on one 
occasion when I was coming into the parlor, and she jumped up pretty 
quick. 

Q. Miss Anthony ? A. Susan B. Anthony. 

Q. What was his conduct with Mrs. Stanton ? A. Well, I never saw 
him caressing her, but he used to be alone with her a great deal in his 
study ; they used to play chess until two or three o'clock in the morn 
ing ; frequently they were up until after the family had gone to bed — 
quite. late. 



394 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Q. How are you able to say that they sat up until two or three 
o'ciock in the morning ? A. Because I was quite awake and heard the 
clock strike. 

Q. Before they retired ? A. Yes, sir. I can testify on one occasion 
the clock struck two, and on another three. 

Q. And they retired after that ? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Was your room near Mrs. Tilton's ? A. It was right next to Mr. 
and Mrs. Tilton's. 

By Mr. Hill— Which Miss W. was he so attentive to ? A. Miss A. W. 

Q. What about the other Miss W. ? A. She was there afterward, 
Miss B. W. ; she was sick there, very sick, indeed. 

Q. I understand you to say that you never saw anything between Mr. 
Beecher and Mrs. Tilton that attracted your attention at all ? A. No. 

Q. Did Mr. Tilton, in any manner, attempt your ruin? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Will you state the circumstances? A. He did" on two occasions 
while Mrs. Tilton was away ; I don't remember where she went ; Horace 
Greeley was in the house at the time ; I think Mrs. Tilton was in Scho- 
harie ; Mr. Tilton and I were there all alone, except Mr. Greeley and 
the servants ; Mr. Greeley was there making a visit to Mr. Tilton ; the 
first time I had been sleeping, and woke up and found myself in 
his arms. 

By Mr. Winslow — At night or in the daytime ? A. At night ; I 
hardly realized where I was ; he must have lifted me out of my bed and 
put me in his ; when I woke up and found where I was Tasked what he 
was doing that for; he said that he was lonesome, and wanted me to 
come and be with him ; I said that wasn't right, and I went back to my 
own room ; there was nothing said about it at the time ; I was quite 
young and used to be with him a great deal, just like one of the chil- 
dren, and I used to comb his hair, and he used to kiss me as he did other 
children frequently ; I never had any impure thought in regard to the 
man ; when he came to me a second time and tried to get in bed with me I 
got very indignant, and as he would not leave the room I went into 
another and locked the door after me; I had never thought of locking 
the door before ; I left the house the next day and did not come back 
until Mrs. Tilton returned ; afterwards Mrs. Tilton told me that Mr. 
Tilton had made a confession of this to her, and she wanted to know if 
this was so ; I said yes, it was so ; I thought of telling her several times, 
but I knew she had a great deal of trouble, and I thought, perhaps, this 
would trouble her a great deal more. 

By General Tracy — Were both events near together ? A. Yes, sir ; 
I think pretty near together. 

Mr. Hill — Was it during the same absence of Mrs. Tilton? A. Yes; 
Mrs. Tilton was absent this time. too. 

Q. Had she come back from Schoharie ? A. No, sir. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 335 

Q. In the winter of 1869-70 did you not go to Mrs. Putnam's in the 
West ? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And you stayed how long ? A. I left there in the fall, I think, and 
stayed nine months ; I think I returned late in the fall of 1870. 

Q. Did you return with Mrs. Tilton ? A. Mrs. Tilton went out to 
Mrs. Putnam's, and I came back with her ; Mr. Tilton met us at Jersey 
City. 

Q. What occurred after you came back in the fall of '70 from Mrs. 
Putnam's ? A. Mr. Tilton met us in Jersey City ; as we came along he 
was very attentive and devoted to Mrs. Tilton, but I could see that she 
was very much troubled and depressed in spirits from the time she went 

into the house — from the time she saw him ; there was a Miss 

keeping house for him ; she occupied Mrs. Tilton's seat at the table and 
put on a great air of authority, and was really rude to Mrs. Tilton ; she 
seemed to want to give an impression of the position that she occupied 
and of what she could do and would' do ; everything went on very well, 

but I could see that Mr. Tilton had Miss just where he wanted her ; 

that she was altogether on his side ; she showed that at breakfast, and 
Mrs. Tilton was crying all the time at the table ; he was very sweet and 
very polite to her and said, " My dear, won't you have some of the 
broiled steak ? " " My dear, won't you have something of this, or some- 
thing of that?" — never letting on to see her tears, though she was cry- 
ing so that she could not eat; I could see through him all the time; I 
was watching him; something told me that there was a villain behind 
all those actions ; they were just for effect ; I could see that ; finally 
Mrs. Tilton excused herself and left the table ; as soon as she had gone 
Mr. Tilton looked at me very sweetly and said, "Bessie, my dear, don't 
you think Elizabeth is demented ? Don't you think she acts like a crazy 
woman ? " I looked him square in the eyes ; I was so indignant that I 
didn't know what to say, but I said, " No, but it is a wonder to me that 
she has not been in the lunatic asylum years ago ; " he changed coun- 
tenance, and probably saw that he was treading on dangerous ground 

when he talked to me about Mrs. Tilton ; then Miss looked at me, 

as much as to say, " If I dared I would box your ears well for you," but 

I did not care for Miss at all ; Mr. Tilton got up at once, before I 

finished my breakfast, and went into the front parlor, on the same floor ; 
he locked one door, and tried to fasten the glass folding-doors ; I could 
see him through the crack ; and could hear him talk very loud to Mrs. 
Tilton ; I was on the alert and was going to watch him ; I went to the 
door and listened, and I saw him with his fist in her face, and he said to 
her, 4i Damn it, this girl shall leave the house ; " then I went in and said, 
"You shan't damn Mrs. Tilton on my account. It is not the first time 
you have had your fist in her face ; you shan't do it on my account ;" 
said he, " Leave the room ;" I said, " I won't ;" said he, " Damn you, leave 



396 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

the room;" I said, "I won't;" then he struck me a heavy blow with 
such force that it threw me clear across the room and knocked my head 
against the doorpost ; I got up and recovered my senses, and went back 
to Mrs. Tilton and tried to shield her ; I was afraid he would knock her 
over. 

Q. After her return did you communicate to any one how he had 
abused her and how he attempted to abuse you? A. Yes, sir; to Mr. 
Richards, to Judge Morse, to Miss Isabella Oakley, to Mr. Beecher and 
to Mrs. Bradshaw. 

Q. What did you tell Mr. Beecher about it ? A. I told him how Mr. 
Tilton had abused her, and that I had known of his abusing her for 
years ; I told him how ugly he was, how unkind he was to her, and that 
what I thought everybody thought, and that he was representing that 
he was the abused one and that Mrs. Tilton was all in the wrong, and 
that I thought my evidence ought to be pretty good, considering that I 
had been there for eight years ; I told him all about it, and then I said 
that lie had offered to insult me, and stated the circumstances to him. 

Q. You stated it also to Mrs. Tilton's brother? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. When did you leave there for the last time ? A. On the 17th of 
February, 1871. 

Q. How came you to leave ? A. Mrs. Tilton had tried to cover all 
this matter over about his knocking me down; she said her husband was 
in a passion and did not know what he was saying, and asked me if I 
would forgive him all this ; I wanted to do anything I could to help Mrs. 
Tilton, and I said, " Yes, that would be all right ;" she seemed to be rec- 
onciled to him, and I never thought anything about it for the time 
being ; on one Sunday I was up in his study, I think, and lie told me 
that Mrs. Tilton was going to do something nice for me ; previous to 
this time she had said to me, " Bessie, how would you like to go to a 
boarding school?" I said I would like it very much, but that the news 
seemed too good tc be true ; she said I might go anywhere I wanted 
to ; I thought that was very nice ; at the same time I wondered that night 
how they go money so quick, because Mr. Tilton had been turned out 
of the Independent, and he had no money, he said ; I did not inquire into 
that, but I thought of this to myself; after Mrs. Tilton had talked to me 
in this way, Mr. Tilton, on Sunday up in the study, said that Elizabeth 
was going to do something nice for me ; that she had always intended 
to send me to school, and that the time had come when she would do it; 

a few days after that it was decided where I should go ; Dr. , who 

was President of the seminary where I attended three years, was a warm 
friend of Mr. Tilton, and he selected that academy for me to go to. 

Q. Who selected it— Mr. Tilton ? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. You went on the 7th of February. 1871 ? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. How long were you at the academy ? A. Two years and a half. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 397 

Q. Did Mrs. Tilton make any request of you, before you left, about 
signing a paper ? A. She did. 

Q. What did she say to get you to do it ? A. She said that public 
opinion was very much against Mr. Tilton ; that he was her husband ; 
that she could not bear all these things that were being said of him ; 
that Mr. Bowen was against him and turned him out of the Indepen- 
dent, and she wished me to retract the statement I had made by signing 
this paper, which was : " I hereby certify that all these stories about 
Mr. Tilton and myself are wicked lies ; " I signed my name to it, and I 
afterward learned that this was all a plot of Mr. Tilton to get me out of 
the way. 

Q. You did not understand it at that time ? A. No, sir ; I would not 
have gone under those conditions. 

Q. But Mrs. Tilton had not said this to you ? A. No, sir ; I signed 
that statement to please Mrs. Tilton, although I must say that at the 
time I felt very wrong about it. 

Q. How many days was this interview between you and Mr. Tilton in 
the study on Sunday before you left ? A. I think not more than two 
days. 

Mr. Sage — How long did Mr. Tilton furnish you with money for your 
expenses? A. Mr. Tilton did not furnish it; it was Mr. Francis Moul- 
ton that furnished the money ; it was furnished up to a year ago last 
Christmas — to January, 1873. 

General Tracy — Did Mr. Tilton in any of these conversations tell you 
what he had himself seen between Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton ? A. 
He said that on several occasions when Mr. Beecher was in his (Tilton's) 
library talking with Mrs. Tilton he took improper liberties with her ; he 
said that there were several instances in his own library which he saw 
himself. 

Q. Did he state any reason for supposing she had been criminally in- 
timate with the other men that he named ? A. No. 

Q. Did he at any time on this day say that she had made any confes- 
sion to him in regard to Mr. Beecher ? A. He said she had confessed 
to him that she had been criminally intimate with Mr. Beecher ; she 
was present when he said that, and she said, " Oh, Theodore ! how can 
you tell that child such base lies ? " and then she burst out crying. 

By Mr. Winslow — Q. Did it hurt you? A. Yes, sir; it hurt me 
fearfully ; I suffered from it for days ; what seems to be the most ridic- 
ulous thing about this was that in a few minutes he said to me, " Bessie, 
my dear, you hurt yourself, didn't you ? how did you come to trip so ? " 
What a ridiculous thing that was, as though I had tripped and banged 
my own head or knocked my own senses out ! I said : " You must be a 
fool, or I am one ;" the audacity of the man, after doing that thing, try- 
ing to make me think I had banged my own head ; it seemed so perfectly 



398 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

ridiculous ; that man has the most assurance of anybody I ever knew ; 
at this same time he sat down and wanted to take me on his lap, but I 
jerked myself away, and he said, " Bessie, my dear, I have been a martyr 
for years ;" then he tried to make me believe he was crying, but I knew 
he wasn't, and he said he wanted to talk with me about Mrs. Tilton, and 

he spoke of her criminality with Mr. Beecher and Mr. X and Mr. 

Y and Mr. Z (naming three highly respectable gentlemen, one 

of whom is an intimate sympathizer with Mr. Tilton), and he said, "No 
wonder my hairs are going down in sorrow to the grave." I said I didn't 
believe one word of it — it was all wicked lies — and he talked, and talked, 
and talked, and talked, and talked, and talked, but he did not make me 
believe anything about Mrs. Tilton ; and that morning he had the 
audacity to stand up in the presence of his wife and say, " Bessie, did I 
ever, in word, look or deed, offer to insult you ? " " Yes, you did," I said, 
"you know you did." He said, "You're a liar ;" he was very defiant, 
evidently thinking I would be afraid of him; I think he has the idea 
that he is some Apollo, some god, that everybody ought to look up to 
and worship ; poor Mrs. Tilton, she has had a hard life with that man. 

Q. Have you heard him say anything about the paternity of the 
children? A. Yes ; he said that none of them belonged to him, except 
Florence. 

Q. When did you say that was ? A. It was on the very day that I 
returned from Mrs. Putnam's. 

Q. It was the day when you "tripped" on the floor? A. No, sir; 
not when I " tripped," but when he knocked me over ; this was in the 
fall of 1870 — late in the fall of that year. 

Q. After that did he continue to abuse Mrs. Tilton? A. Oh, yes; he 
locked her up and scolded all night long ; and she was crying and cry- 
ing ; and when she was not crying, she was praying. 

Q. Did she leave him and go away and take the children ? A. I think 
she was afraid of him, and I think two or three nights afterward she 
took the children — Alice and Carroll — and went to Mrs. Morse's ; I went 
with her, and that same night, or the night after, he came around and 
got on his knees and vowed how much he loved her, and asked her if 
she would come back to his bosom again, and all that sort of nonsense ; 
and poor Mrs. Tilton, who was always ready to trust and believe him, 
believed him then and went back, and he told her she had better go to 
bed ; she was tired and sat down a moment, and then she went to bed ; 
as soon as she had gone to bed he went over all this talk and all this 
rigmarole with me again, which he had gone over before about Mr. 

Beecher, Mr. , and Mr. , and Mr. . But I did not believe 

it; it was a wicked lie, and I told him I never would believe him; he 
mentioned that he had seen Mr. Beecher taking improper liberties with 
Mrs. Tilton before his own eyes, in the library. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 399 

Q. In what library ? A. In Mr. Tilton's library. 

Q. Did he say what he had seen in regard to the other men? A. No, 
sir, I think not. 

Q. How long did she live with him after she went back with him from 
her mother's, before she left him again ? A. I think she stayed some 
little time. She went away the second time and was gone eight or ten 
days, and was staying at her mother's. I went with her. 

Q. At that time was he having difficulty with Mr. Bowen ? A. Yes, 
sir ; very great difficulties. 

Q. Do you know what means Mr. Tilton resorted to to get her to go 
back ? A. He resorted to every means possible. 

Q. Did he send for the children? A. Yes, sir ; in the first place, he 
sent Miss Annie Tilton, his only sister, around to say that he wanted 
his children ; he sent her several times, and, I think, he came around 
himself several times. 

Q. Do you know whether he got his children during Mrs. Tilton's ab- 
sence ? A. I think Florence went with him. 

Q. Did Mrs. Tilton go back home ? A. Yes, sir, and I went with 
her. 

Q. Was she taken sick soon after ? A. Yes, sir, soon after. 

Q. Yery sick ? A. Very sick, indeed ; it was thought that she would 
not live. 

Q. What doctor attended her, do you know ? A. Dr. Skiles. 

Q. When was that ? A. This all occurred on that one day that we 
went back, in the fall of 1870. 

Q. Did you ever see any acts of intimacy between Mr. Tilton and this 

Miss ? A. He was locked up with her on several occasions, and 

twice I met him coming out of her room as I was going up-stairs. 

Q. In the daytime or at night? A. Once or twice at night, and 
several times during the day; in the daytime I have known that he was 
in her room. 

Q. How did you know that he was there ? A. I saw him go in and I 
saw him come out. 

Q. How did you know that the door was locked ? A. I heard them 
lock it on one or two occasions ; I was in Mr. Tilton's library ; I also 

heard Miss say so ; Miss Anthony was there, and they had great 

trouble ; many words passed ; there was a great deal of talk, and I heard 

Mrs. Tilton say something to Miss about being with her husband, 

and she (Miss ) said that he had been often in her bedroom, that he 

should go there twenty times a day if he wanted to, and that it was none 
of her (Mrs. Tilton's) business whatever; I was not in the room, but I 
heard Miss make those remarks. 

Q. Where — in Miss 's room ? A. No, sir ; but in Mrs. Tilton's 



400 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

XXVI. 

REV. MR. HALLIDAY'S STATEMENT. 

One of the witnesses examined by the committee was 
the Rev. Samuel B. Halliday, the Assistant Pastor of Ply- 
mouth Church. This gentleman made no secret of the 
statements he had made to the committee, which were 
to the effect that Mr. Tiiton and Mr. Moulton had ex- 
plicitly denied to him the truth of the Woodhull scan- 
dal and other stories of a like character concerning the 
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and Mrs. Tiiton. These 
statements having aroused considerable discussion, the 
New York Tribune despatched one of its representatives 
to ask Mr. Halliday what truth there was in the asser- 
tions credited to him. Mr. Halliday stated to the 
Tribune reporter that he had made a full statement 
before the committee, but would give the story of Mr. 
Tiiton, and Mr. Moulton's denial to him, in his own 
words, being in substance what he had said to the com- 
mittee on the subject : 

" On the 18th of November — I think it was on Monday" — 
said Mr. Halliday, " Theodore Tiiton called at my house. My 
acquaintance with Mr. Tiiton was very slight, and I was very 
much astonished to receive a call from him, especially at so 
early an hour — between nine and ten o'clock. After exchanging 
the customary ' Good-morning/ Mr. Tiiton began at once to 
unfold the object of his visit by saying that he had called by 
the advice or at the request of Francis D. Moulton. Mr. Tiiton 
had just finished this sentence, when the door bell rang, and 
soon afterward George AV. Bell, a member of Plymouth Church, 
entered the room. He called upon an errand connected with 
church business, and having concluded it, turned to depart. 
Mr. Tiiton asked him to stay, and I assented to the invitation. 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 401 

Mr. Tilton then repeated what he had first said — that Mr. 
Moulton had advised or requested him to call upon me, and 
added that he had come to make to me a denial of the Wood- 
hull scandal. Mr. Tilton sat upon the end of the sofa, where 
he could look out of the window into the yard, and Mr. Bell 
occupied the other end. I remember Mr. Tilton's exact word* 
of denial. He raised his arm, and pointing to a large tree in 
my yard, said : ' It is just as false as it would be for me to go 
over to New York and say that the tree in front of Mr. Halli- 
day's house has 500 flags upon it, representing all the nations 
of the earth.' " 

Mr. Halliday was asked if there was anything in the sur- 
roundings of the house or trees to suggest this singular compari- 
son. He answered that it appeared to be made by Mr. Tilton 
to illustrate more forcibly how utterly improbable the scandal 
was. It was an eccentric simile used for emphasis. Mr. Tilton 
was apt to employ strange similes to make his meaning and 
language more forcible and emphatic. Mr. Tilton's contradic- 
tion of the scandal was as explicit and emphatic as language 
could make it, and he protested that he had been utterly igno- 
rant of its existence until it was published. He reiterated his 
denial, and the scandal was the topic of conversation for over 
half an hour. In his conversation Mr. Tilton frequently in- 
sinuated that he had causes of grievance toward Mr. Beecher, 
though not of the character related in the scandal. "I en- 
deavored," said he, "to induce him to make some specific charge 
or indicate the nature of his grievances ; but he would not do 
so. He emphatically asserted Mrs. Tilton's innocence, and 
said : 'She is as pure as the light; go to Mr. Beecher, he will 
tell you that she is as pure as gold — or as an angel/ I do not 
remember positively which of these expressions he made use of. 
Mr. Tilton talked rapidly, and neither Mr. Bell nor myself 
could learn the nature of the alleged wrong by Mr. Beecher. 
At length, becoming tired of his hints and innuendoes, I pressed 
him strongly for some specific declaration of wrong done to him 
by Mr. Beecher. Then Mr. Tilton said, 'You go to Frank 
Moulton ; he will confirm what I say, and will show you docu- 
26 



402 THE THUE HISTORY OF 

mentary evidence of ray charges/ Mr. Tilton urged me strongly 
to see Mr. Moulton, and then Mr. Bell asked whether he could 
not call there with tne. Mr. Tilton answered: 'No; he will 
not want to see you, but will Mr. Halliday, as the assistant 
pastor of Plymouth Church.' Mr. Tilton repeatedly said that 
his communications had been in confidence, and I did not then 
feel at liberty to mention more of the interview than merely to 
contradict the scandal upon his authority. 

"After Mr. Tilton had gone, Mr. Bell and myselt discussed 
the propriety of my calling upon Mr. Moulton. I expressed 
the opinion that if Mr. Moulton had any information or docu- 
ments, he held them in a confidential relation. Therefore, I 
felt great reluctance to question him about them. Mr. Bell 
urged that I ought to ascertain from Mr. Moulton for Mr. 
Beecher what they might have to substantiate Mr. Tilton's 
insinuations. When Mr. Boll went away I had not decided 
whether I should call upon Mr. Moulton or not, but afterwards 
I concluded to do so before that night. On. that afternoon I 
called at Mr. Moul ton's house, but he was not at home. The 
next morning (Tuesday) I called again about 8 o'clock. I sent 
in my name, and in a few minutes Mr. Moulton came into the 
parlor, and, shaking hands, said : ' I know what you want, Mr. 
Halliclay, but I cannot talk with you this morning. I've been 
up all night, and must go to New York as soon as I get my 
breakfast.' Afterward, as we walked to the door, he said : 
' How absurd a thing it would be for Plymouth Church to 
notice this shameful scandal, as between Mr. Beecher, whose 
life for twenty-five years is before them, and the accusations of 
those bad women ! ' Mr. Moulton then promised to see me in 
the evening at 7, but at that time he was again not at home. 
I called upon him on Wednesday morning, and again in the 
evening, but could not catch him at home. On Saturday he 
sent me word that he would be at home that evening until 
half-past nine; went to his house at once on the receipt of his 
message, and was shown into his study at the top of the house. 
After exchanging the customary greetings, I said : ' Mr. Moul- 
ton, I have no curiosity to gratify, and do not wish to see 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 403 

anything that you may have, nor have you tell me anything 
that you may know unless you desire to do so; but Theodore 
Tiltou called upon me on Monday morning, and in the pres- 
ence of Mr. Bell, had a long talk about the VY r oodhull scandal, 
in the course of which he made many insinuations against Mr. 
Beecher.' 

44 Mr. Moulton replied with great warmth, denouncing the 
Woodhull scandal as utterly baseless, and not possessing the 
least shadow of truth. He spoke in the highest terms of Mr. 
Beecher, and said that he was one of the purest and grandest 
of men. He said that it was perfectly absurd, with his life of 
twenty-five years before our community and the world, to even 
notice the accusations of such women as were his accusers. For 
nearly half an hour Mr. Moulton fairly hissed out his contempt 
for the scandal, the wretches who wrote it, and the people who 
would heed it. He spoke far more excitedly than Mr. Tilton 
had done. At length I said : < Mr. Moulton, Dr. Morrill (who 
has since died) informed me that Demas Barnes, the publisher 
of the Argus, told him in his (Mr. Barnes's) parlor that fifty 
men had been to see you about this affair, and that you invari- 
ably replied : ' This is a dirty matter; you better let it alone. 
The more you stir it the more it will smell/ To this Mr. 
Moulton excitedly replied : ' It is false. It is no such thing. 
Very few come to me, and to those who do I speak as I have 
to yon. Men go to my partners and ask them about it. Why 
don't they come to me ? They are a set of damned cowards.' 
(I quote his exact language.) 'I made an explanation of this 
affair,' continued Mr. Moulton, ' which I think was satisfactory 
to Mr. Baxter, of Dr. Storrs's church, a gentleman whom I re- 
spect ; but such sneaks as Dwight Johnson I despise.' Dwight 
Johnson is in the insurance business, a deacon in the church, 
and was a candidate for Mayor against Mr. Hunter a year ago. 
I then said : 'Mr. Moulton, you have disposed of the Woodhull 
story as well as that of Mr. Barnes ; but what am I to under- 
stand, not by the specific charges, but the innuendoes and in- 
sinuations of Mr. Tilton, for confirmation of which he referred 
me to you ? ' 



404 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

" Mr. Moulton was at that moment leaning on his right hand 
the left side of his face toward me, his elbow resting upon the 
table. Straightening himself up, he brought his fist down upon 
the table with a crash, and said : ' I know as much of this 
whole affair as any one does, and I know that Mr. Beecher is 
guiltless. Mr. Halliday, I am not a member of your church, 
but my wife is ; do you suppose that if I thought that Mr. 
Beecher was a bad man I would allow him to sit as a guest at 
my table with my wife, as he does frequently ? ? 

"After some further conversation Mr. Moulton said : ' Why, 
Mr. Halliday, Mr. Tilton is friendly to Mr. Beecher. When 
Mr. Beecher came back from campaigning in New Hampshire 
the morning of the election, Mr. Tilton was sitting on the sofa 
just where you are. Mr. Beecher came in that door and Theodore 
sprang towards him, and grasping Mr. Beecher's hand in both 
his, expressed the intensest sorrow at the appearance of the scan- 
dal, and avowed his entire ignorance in regard to its publication, 
and offered to do anything in his power to destroy the effects of 
the calumny, and sat down and wrote a card for publication, 
which, however, by advice of counsel, was never given to the 
public. I denied the scandal; Theodore had denied it ; Mrs. 
H. B. Stanton has denied it ; all named in it have denied it 
except Paulina Davis, and she is in Europe. Now, what more 
can be done?' 

" In the entire interview with Mr. Moulton his manner was 
as decided as that of any man with whom I ever spoke; I want 
to say also that Mr. Moulton treated me courteously and im- 
pressed me with his sincerity. Up to the Tuesday morning of 
that week when I first met him, Mr. Moulton was an entire 
stranger to me. We have never conversed upon the subject 
since. I feel sure that Mr. Beecher will go through his great 
trial with added lustre ; but I and many others believed that 
the denial of utter silence would have been the better course. 
None who have known of Mr. Beecher's thirty years of labor 
in the Christian work could ever allow themselves to harbor one 
thought against his purity. As for Mrs. Tilton, I believe that 
her life has been a lie — a lie lived to shield the misdeeds of her 



THE BBOOKLYN SCANDAL. 405 

husband from the world. I could not have believed that any 
man could have done as Theodore Tilton has. Nothing seems 
sacred to him, and his last act of desecration, in permitting the 
publication of his wife's pure effusions, meant for his eyes alone, 
is only in keeping with his malicious accusations against Mr. 
Beecher." 



XXVII. 

THE REPORT OF THE INVESTIGATING COM- 
MITTEE. 

The committee having completed their labors, the 
only thing left to them was to present their report, and 
ask to be discharged from a further consideration of 
the subject. 

An adjourned business meeting of Plymouth Church was held 
on Friday evening, August 28, to receive and act upon the report 
of the committee that has been investigating the charges made 
against Mr. Beecher. By courtesy of the church the Society 
and congregation were present, and their numbers were swelled 
by a great throng of Brooklynites not connected with Plymouth 
except by interest and sympathy. The meeting was held in the 
main church building, which was filled' to overflowing. The 
temper of the assemblage was most ardent and enthusiastic. 

Mr. James Freeland was chosen Moderator; the 69th hymn 
of the Plymouth collection was sung, and Mr. Garbutt led the 
meeting in prayer. The following Report of the Examining 
Committee, which includes the Report of the Committee of In- 
vestigation, was then read by Professor Robert R. Raymond. 

[It will be borne in mind that the "Examining Committee" 
is the standing committee of the church ; the " Committee of 
Investigation " consists of the gentlemen who w T ere appointed 
to examine the charges against Mr. Beecher. The latter body 
made its report to the Examining Committee, who embodied it 
in their own report to the church.] 



406 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

REPORT OF THE EXAMINING COMMITTEE. 

The Examining Committee of Plymouth Church beg leave 
to report that, in consequence of the publication of certain state- 
ments by Theodore Tilton, the committee were requested by 
the pastor of the church to authorize an investigation by a sub- 
committee into the imputations made against his character. 
On the 6th of July, 1874, the committee accordingly appointed 
Brothers II. AY. Sage and H. M. Cleveland such committee, 
requesting them to associate with themselves Messrs. Claflin, 
Winslow, Storrs and AYhite, who are not members of the Ex- 
amining Committee. Xo charges having been presented to the 
church nor to the Examining Committee against our pastor, it 
was the duty of the sub-committee simply to ascertain whether 
there was any foundation, in fact, for charges and a trial before 
the body of the church. The sub-committee has, in our judg- 
ment, faithfully and impartially discharged its duties, and has 
presented to us a report which is here annexed. 

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF INVESTIGATION. 

To the Examining Committee of Plymouth Church: 

Dear Brethren : — The pastor of Plymouth Church, the 
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, addressed to us a letter, June 27, 
1874, of which the following is a copy : 

Brooklyn, June 27, 1874. 

Gentlemen : — In the present state of the public feeling, I owe it to 
my friends and to the church and the Society over which I am pastor 
to have some proper investigation made of the rumors, insinuations or 
charges made respecting my conduct, as compromised by the late publi- 
cations made by Mr. Tiiton. I have thought that both the church and 
the Society should be represented, and I take the liberty of asking the 
following gentlemen to serve in this inquiry, and to do that which truth 
and justice may require. I beg that each of the gentlemen named will 
consider this as if it had been separately and personally sent to him, 
namely : 

From the Church — Henry W. Sage, Augustus Storrs, Henry M. 
Cleveland. 

From the Society—- Horace B. Claflin, John Winslow, S. V. White. 

I desire you, when you have satisfied yourselves by an impartial and 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 407 

thorough examination of all sources of evidence, to communicate to the 
Examining Committee, or to the church, such action as then may seem 
to you right and wise. 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

The committee named having signified their willingness to 
serve in the grave matters so referred to them, Mr. Beecher sent 
the following letter to the Examining Committee of Plymouth 

Church : 

July 6, 1874. 
Dear Brethren : — I enclose to you a letter in which I have requested 
three gentlemen from the church, and three from the Society of Ply- 
mouth Church (gentlemen of unimpeachable repute, and who have not 
been involved in any of the trials through which we have passed during 
the year), to make a thorough and impartial examination of all charges 
or insinuations against my good name, and to report the same to you; 
and I now respectfully request that you will give to this committee the 
authority to act in your behalf also. It seemed wise to me that the re- 
quest should proceed from me, and without your foregoing knowledge, 
and that you should give to it authority to act in your behalf in so far 
as a thorough investigation of the facts should be concerned. 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

Thereupon the Examining Committee duly authorized the 
committee named in the letter of June 27 to act in their behalf 
also. 

Second. — Your committee cannot here refrain from referring 
to the inexpressible regret which they in common with all good 
men feel, that uncontrollable circumstances have made it neces- 
sary to discuss in the most public manner the unhappy scandal 
which is the subject of the present inquiry. 

But accepting the situation as we found it when we entered 
upon the high and solemn trust thus imposed, we have been 
profoundly impressed from the beginning with the grave im- 
portance of the work before us. 

For a considerable time vague and indefinite rumors were in 
circulation, touching in a vital manner the Christian integrity 
of our beloved pastor. But nothing had appeared from a 
known responsible source in a tangible form until the letter of 
Mr. Theodore Tilton to the Eev. Dr. Bacon, which was pub- 
lished the 25th day of June, 1874. 



408 THE TEUE HISTORY OF 

It was the appearance of this letter that moved Mr. Beecher 
two days afterwards to request immediate investigation. It will 
be seen by the terms of such request that some proper investi- 
gation is asked for by him, of the rumors, insinuations or 
charges made respecting his conduct as compromised by the late 
publications made by Mr. Tilton. 

We were invited to make an impartial and thorough exami- 
nation "of all sources of evidence," and to advise such action 
as may seem right and wise. 

Third. — In conducting this investigation we have faithfully 
endeavored to make it thorough and impartial, and to obtain 
such facts as are relevant to the inquiry from all attainable 
sources of evidence. For this purpose we have summoned or 
requested the attendance of the following persons to testify be- 
fore the committee: Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton, Mrs. H. W. 
Beecher, Samuel Wilkeson, John R. Howard, Theodore Tilton, 
Samuel E. Belcher, Mrs. N. B. Morse, Oliver Johnson, Rev. 
R. S. Storrs, D.D., Dwight Johnson, Isaac H. Bailey, Mrs. Put- 
nam, John W. Mason, Rev. W. W. Patton, Mary C. Ames, 
Richard P. Buck, Francis B. Carpenter, Albert F. Norton, 
Thomas M. Vaill, E. M. Holmes, Hon. N. B. Morse, Mrs. 
Mary B. Bradshaw, Joseph Richards, Miss Elizabeth A. Tur- 
ner, Francis W. Skiles, M.D., Charles Corey, M.D., Dr. Min- 
ton, Miss Oakley, Mrs. Elizabeth A. Ovington, Mrs. Wallace, 
Rev. S. B. Halliday, Thomas B. Shearman, Benjamin F. Tracy, 
Francis D. Moulton, Franklin Woodruff, John W. Harmon, 
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 

Most of the persons named have attended as requested be- 
fore the committee. One notable exception is Francis B. Car- 
penter. Mr. Francis D. Moulton promised to testify fully, but 
has failed to do so. He has submitted three short statements 
in writing to the committee, consisting chiefly of reasons why he 
declined to testify, and of promises to testify, at the call of the 
committee. The committee have called him three times with 
the results stated. 

In addition to the evidence of the persons named we have 
examined a considerable number of letters and other documen- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 409 

tary evidence which, in some way, was supposed to relate to 
the subject-matter of inquiry. We have held in the prosecution 
of our investigations twenty-eight sessions. 

Fourth. — Mr. Tilton, in his letter to Dr. Bacon, published 
on the 25th day of June, 1874, states that knowledge came to 
him in 1870 that Mr. Beecher had committed an offence against 
him, which he forbore to name or characterize; and in the same 
letter introduced what he alleged to be extracts from a letter 
signed by Mr. Beecher and dated January 1, 1871. This 
alleged letter, the whole of which appears in Mr. Tilton's sub- 
sequent statement before the committee, has come to be known 
as the " letter of apology." When this committee commenced 
its labors there was therefore no allegation before them except 
such vague allusion to an offence of some sort said to have been 
committed by Mr. Beecher against Mr. Tilton, and for which, 
according to the same authority, he had apologized. It will 
thus be seen that the question before the committee, then, was, 
What, if any, offence had Mr. Beecher committed against Mr. 
Tilton ? 

Fifth. — At an early period of the investigation Mr. Tilton 
was called before the committee and made an extended written 
statement, and in a sense specific charges, which showed that 
the offence referred to in the Bacon letter, so called, was, as Mr. 
Tilton now alleges, adultery with his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth R. 
Tilton. By this statement so made by Mr. Tilton, the field of 
inquiry was somewhat enlarged by the alleged facts, letters and 
circumstances therein set forth. 

It is proper in this connection to state that the offence as 
alleged by Mr. Tilton during some four years and until recently 
to numerous persons, in writing and otherwise, was an improper 
suggestion or solicitation by Mr. Beecher to Mrs. Tilton. But 
as time passed and purposes matured, this charge passed and 
matured into another form and substance. 

The offence committed by Mr. Beecher, as now alleged by 
Mr. Tilton, is stated substantially in the third and fourth sub- 
divisions of his statement before the committee. The charge, 
in pffaot, is that Mr. Beecher at his residence on the evening of 



410 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

October 10, 1868, or thereabouts, committed adultery with 
Elizabeth K. Tilton, wife of Theodore Tilton ; that this " act 
was followed by a similar act of criminality between the same 
parties at Mr. Tilton's residence on the subsequent Saturday 
evening, followed also by other similar acts on various occa- 
sions, from the autumn of 1868 to the spring of 1870, the places 
being the two residences aforesaid, and occasionally other places 
to which her pastor would invite and accompany her, or at 
which he would meet her by previous appointment." 

The remainder of Mr. Tilton's extended statement is made 
up of citations of alleged fact and circumstances which he seems 
to consider relevant and important, as evidence sustaining his 
charges as above stated. 

The committee have given the evidence their most careful 
consideration, and find therefrom that in 1861 Mr. Beecher 
became editor, and Mr. Tilton assistant editor, of the Indepen- 
dent, and that during this relation they became warm and inti- 
mate friends. On or about 1863 Mr. Tilton began to urge Mr. 
Beecher to visit his (Tilton's) house, and he became more inti- 
mately acquainted with Mr. Tilton's family. Pie urged him to 
do much of his editorial writing in his study, as it was more 
convenient to write there than at the office of the Independent. 
Mr. Beecher visited his house, and a friendly relation sprang up 
between the wife and family of Mr. Tilton and Mr. Beecher, 
which continued down to December in 1870. That the friendly 
relations existing between Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton were 
always well known and understood, and met with Mr. Tilton's 
cordial approval. Some years before any open trouble appeared 
between Mr. Beecher and Mr. Tilton, his (Mr. Tilton's) doc- 
trines as set forth in the Independent, of which he had become 
editor, aroused a storm of indignation and opposition in the 
West, where this paper was widely circulated. After much dis- 
cussion, this led to the starting of the Advance newspaper in 
Chicago, to supersede the Independent. Mr. Tilton, while 
editor of the Independent, a leading religious newspaper, had 
come to deny the inspiration of the Scriptures and the divinity 
of Christ. His social views, about this time, also underwent a 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 411 

radical change in the direction of free love. This marked 
change in the religious and social views of Mr. Tilton was a 
source of great grief and sorrow to Mrs. Tilton. Mrs. Tilton 
seemed to be a very religious woman — amounting almost to 
enthusiasm — and when this change occurred in her husband, 
she naturally sought her pastor for counsel and sympathy. She 
set forth in strong terms the suffering her husband's course was 
causing her. It now appears that during these years Mrs. 
Tilton became strongly attached to Mr. Beecher, and in July, 
1870, confessed to her husband an overshadowing affection for 
her pastor. 

On or about the 10th of December, 1870, Mrs. Tilton sepa- 
rated from her husband, going with her children to her mother's 
house. She sent for Mr. Beecher, and on his visiting her she 
made to him a statement of her sufferings and the abuse which 
she had received at the hands of her husband, which greatly 
shocked Mr. Beecher. He asked and received permission to 
send to Mrs. Tilton his wife, whose judgment in such matters 
he considered better than his own. Subsequently he agreed in 
advising with his wife that it was desirable that Mrs. Tilton 
should separate from her husband. Mr. Tilton, however, sub- 
sequently forced his wife to return to his house by sending for 
and obtaining possession of the youngest child, who was sick 
with the croup, during Mrs. Tilton's temporary absence from 
her mother's house. She suffered a miscarriage the next day 
after her return, on the 24th, which resulted in a serious illness, 
continuing until after the 1st of January, her physician being 
in daily attendance on her from the 24th to the 30th of Decem- 
ber, inclusive. Early in December this year, owing to the 
marked change in Mr. Tilton's religious and social views, Mr. 
Bowen felt constrained to give him notice that his services as 
editor of the Independent would terminate at a day named in the 
notice. Subsequently to this notice, and on or about the 20th 
of December, Mr. Bowen had entered into a contract with Mr. 
Tilton, by which he was to be editor of the Brooklyn Daily 
Union and chief contributor of the Independent, for five years; 
but within a few days after making this contract Mr. Bow T en 



412 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

received such information of Tilton's immorality as alarmed 
him, and led to an interview between himself, Tilton and Oliver 
Johnson, at the house of Bowen, on the 26th day of December, 
1870. At this interview Mr. Tilton sought to retain his place 
and Bowen 's confidence by offering to join Bowen in an attack 
on Mr. Beech er. 

This interview resulted in the insolent letter which Mr. Til- 
ton wrote and signed on the 27th of December, demanding that 
Mr. Beecher leave Plymouth pulpit and Brooklyn. That 
evening Mr. Bowen, on his way home, delivered this letter to 
Mr. Beecher. Mr. Beecher, on reading it, expressed his aston- 
ishment at the receipt of such a letter, and denounced its author. 
Mr. Bowen then derided the letter, and gave him some account 
of the reasons why he had reduced Tilton from the editorship 
of the Independent to the subordinate position of contributor, 
saying that Mr. Tilton's religious and social views were ruining 
the paper, and. that he was now considering whether he could 
consistently retain him as editor of the Brooklyn Union or 
chief contributor of the Independent. They conversed for some 
time, Mr. Bowen wishing Mr. Beecher's opinion, which was 
freely given. Mr. Beecher said he did not see how Mr. Bowen 
could retain his relations with Mr. Tilton. Mr. Beecher spoke 
strongly of the threatening letter and the revelation he had just 
had concerning Tilton's domestic affairs. Mr. Bowen read 
Tilton's threatening letter, and said that if trouble came he 
would stand by Mr. Beecher. It seems that Mr. Bowen com- 
municated to Mr. Tilton, on the following day, the conversation 
had with Mr. Beecher and his intention to stand by him. Mr. 
Beecher, though he had no doubt that Tilton would have lost 
his place, saw that his influence was decisive, and precipitated 
Tilton's overthrow. It now appears that on the 29th of Decem- 
ber, 1870, Mr. Tilton having learned the advice Mr. Beecher 
gave Mr. Bowen, and which was likely to bring him face to 
face with loss of place and position, extorted from his wife, then 
lying ill of miscarriage, a document implicating Mr. Beecher — 
a document evincing her love for her pastor, and accusing him 
of having made an improper solicitation. On the following 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 413 

day he sent Moulton to Beecher, requesting an interview with 
Mr. Beecher at Moulton's house that evening. Mr. Beecher 
accordingly met Tilton at Moulton's house. Tilton received 
him with a memorandum in his hand, and proceeded to charge 
Mr. Beecher with being unfriendly to him, with seeking his 
downfall, spreading injurious rumors about him, undermining 
him, and advising Bo wen to dismiss him, injuring him in his 
family relations, joining his (Tilton's) mother-in-law in pro- 
ducing discord in the house; advising a separation; alienating 
his wife's affection from him, with gaining her love more than 
any living being, with corrupting her moral nature, with teach- 
ing her to be insincere, lying and hypocritical, and ended by 
charging that he made wicked proposals to her. Tilton then 
produced a written paper purporting to be a memorandum of a 
confession made, in July previous, to him by his wife, of her 
love for Mr. Beecher, and that he had made proposals to her 
of an impure nature. 

Mr. Tilton, in the 22d subdivision of his statement before 
the committee, referring in time to December, 1870, states his 
grievance and cause of complaint of Mr. Beecher touching 
Tilton's business relations with Mr. Bowen in these words : 
"That he (Mr. Beecher) then participated in a conspiracy to 
degrade Theodore Tilton before the public — by loss of "place, 
business, and repute." It is clear that on the 29th day of 
December, when the so-called memorandum of confession was 
procured from Mrs. Tilton, the chief inciting cause of that step 
on Tilton's part was his belief that Mr. Beecher had caused 
him " loss of place, business, and repute." 

Mr. Beecher says this charge of impure proposals fell upon 
him like a thunderbolt. Could it be possible that Mrs. Tilton, 
whom he had regarded as the type of so much moral goodness, 
should have made such false and atrocious statements? Tilton 
requested Mr. Beecher to repair to his house, where Elizabeth 
was waiting for him, and learn from her lips the truth of the 
stories in so far as they concerned her. The interview was had, 
and resulted in a written retraction of the charges of Mrs. Tilton, 
who seemed in great distress. In a sort of postscript to the re- 



414 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

traction she denied explicitly that Mr. Beecher had ever offered 
any improper solicitations to her, that being the only charge made 
by Tilton, or referred to in the statement about the confession in 
July. On the next evening Moulton called at Mr. Beecher's 
house, and went up into his bedroom. He said that he and 
Tilton had learned that Mrs. Tilton had given the retraction. 
He expostulated and said the act was unfriendly, and would 
not mend matters, and that Mrs. Tilton had already recanted 
the retraction. That Tilton had already destroyed his wife's 
first paper of confession. Moulton claimed that Mr. Beecher 
had acted unfairly. That all difficulties could be settled without 
such papers, and that Mr. Beecher ought to give it up. Moul- 
ton was under great apparent excitement. He made no verbal 
threats, but displayed a pistol and laid it on the bureau near 
which he stood. The paper was given to him, and after a few 
moments' talk he left. It is an amazing pity that at this junc- 
ture Moulton was not handed over to the police. It would have 
saved much that followed, which is deeply deplored. Mr. 
Beecher's distress at the situation was boundless. He saw the 
peril of being even falsely accused. He blamed himself for 
much that had occurred. He could not tell how much of the 
impending trouble could be attributed to Mrs. Tilton's undue 
affection for him, which it was his duty to have .repressed. 
" My earnest desire," he says, " to avoid a public accusation and 
the evils which must necessarily flow from it, and which have 
now resulted from it, has been one of the leading motives that 
must explain my action during these four years in this matter." 
While he was in a morbid condition of mind, produced by these 
distressing difficulties, Moulton again called on him. His man- 
ner was kind and conciliatory. He professed, however, to be- 
lieve that Mr. Beecher had been seeking Tilton's downfall ; had 
leagued with Mr. Bowen against him, and by his advice had 
come near destroying Tilton's family. Mr. Beecher expressed 
many and strong regrets at the misfortunes of that family. 
Moulton caught up some of these expressions and wrote them 
down, saying that if Tilton could see them there would be no 
trouble in procuring a reconciliation. This paper, which is 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 415 

dated January 1, 1871, was intrusted by Mr. Beecher to Moul- 
ton's keeping without reading it, nor was it read to him. This 
paper, sometimes called " the apology," and sometimes " the 
confession/' is in no proper sense Mr. Beecher's production, or 
a correct report of what he said. No man will believe, for in- 
stance, that Mr. Beecher said : " I humble myself before him 
(Tilton) as I do before my God." Another sentence : "Her 
forgiveness I have." Mr. Beecher states it was not said, nor 
the semblance of it. 

Pausing here, a very important question arises in this connec- 
tion. To what does the apology refer? It declares Mrs. Til- 
ton " guiltless," and yet Tilton says it refers to adultery, which 
Mr. Beecher denies. Without now considering the weight of 
credit to which the respective parties are entitled where there is 
a conflict between them, we believe, and propose to show from 
the evidence, that the original charge was improper advances, 
and that as time passed, and the conspiracy deepened, it was 
enlarged into adultery. 

The importance of this is apparent. Because if the charge 
has been so changed, then both Tilton and Moulton are con- 
spirators, and convicted of a vile fraud, which necessarily ends 
their influence in this controversy. What is the proof that the 
charge in the first instance was adultery ? It is said that it 
was, and that the memorandum in the hands of Tilton, in his 
wife's handwriting, was to such effect. But this is denied by 
both Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton, and the written paper is not 
produced. It is said further that Mr. Beecher confessed the 
fact of adultery. But this, again, is denied by him, and such 
alleged confession is inconsistent with the retraction he received 
that evening from Mrs. Tilton. If he had confessed, what ser- 
vice could the retraction render? Why procure one at all if, as 
alleged, Mr. Beecher had that evening confessed adultery to 
Tilton and Moulton, or to either? What, then, was the charge 
preferred on the evening of December 30? We answer: It 
was improper advances, which, of course, Mr. Beecher denied. 
What occurred in the matter of retraction that evening, and all 
the subsequent conversations, acts, and letters of the various 



416 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

persons directly concerned in dealing with the scandal, are con- 
sistent with this view, and with no other. The retraction pro- 
cured referred to improper advances, and to nothing else. Is it 
likely, if the main offence had been charged, Mr. Beecher would 
have been satisfied with anything short of a retraction of that? 
There is a sort of postscript to the retraction, in which the 
charge of improper advances is explicitly denied — thus showing, 
we submit, that this was the charge that was in the mind of 
both Mrs. Tilton and Mr. Beecher, and no other offence. But 
look further: Mr. Tilton, in the last four years, has many times 
s.iid, verbally and in writing, that the charge was the lesser 
offence. This is important under the rule that where a com- 
plainant has made different and inconsistent statements of the 
offence he alleges, his credibility is damaged, and in most cases 
destroyed. In the written statement of the offence shown to 
Dr. Storrs by Tilton and Carpenter, which was made in Mrs. 
Tilton's handwriting, under the demand of her husband, who 
says he dictated the precise words characterizing the offence, the 
charge was an impure proposal. This statement Mrs. Tilton 
retracted, and says she protested against it as false when signed, 
and afterwards saw Dr. Storrs and told him so. Dr. Storrs, in 
a letter to the committee, confirms the retraction. In the 
manuscript prepared by Tilton, which he called "the true 
story/' the offence was stated to be improper advances. This 
"true story" Tilton was in the habit of reading to newspaper 
men, personal friends, and to others, without, it would seem, 
much discrimination, considering how anxious he professed to 
be not to make known his secret. Mr. Belcher testifies that he 
met Tilton on the ferry-boat about two weeks after the publica- 
tion of the Woodhull scandal, and they talked the matter over. 
He says that Tilton was at first mysterious and non-committal, 
but on their way home in Brooklyn Tilton invited him into his 
house, where the "true story" was exhibited to Mr. Belcher, 
and a prolonged conversation was had which lasted until mid- 
night ; and during all this not one word was said or hinted by 
Tilton that he believed Beecher had committed adultery. On 
the contrary, he asserted his unshaken confidence in his wife s 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 417 

purity, and complained only of the improper solicitation, Ex- 
Supervisor Harmon, who, like Mr. Belcher, is one of our well- 
known and reputable citizens, testifies to substantially the same 
experience with Til ton as to the nature of the charge. Mr. 
Harmon goes further, and testifies not only that Tilton read to 
him the "true story," in which there was no allegation of 
adultery, but that Tilton described to him his first interview 
with Mr. Beecher on the evening of December 30, and then in- 
formed Mr. Harmon that he at that time charged Mr. Beecher 
with the offence of improper advances. Mr. Harmon explicitly 
states that in all his conversations, which were numerous, with 
Tilton for more than two years, he at no time alleged adultery 
as the offence of which he complained. 

The testimony before the committee shows similar statements 
by Tilton to various other persons up to within a recent period. 
The further fact that Tilton treated the matter during four 
years as an offence which could be properly apologized for and 
forgiven is wholly inconsistent with the charge in its present 
form. Tilton, in his written statement, complains that Mr. 
Beecher "abused his (Tilton's) forgiveness/' It is believed no 
case of adultery on record can be produced where an injured 
husband upon learning of his wife's infidelity kept the fact to 
himself for six months, and then, after private complaint to the 
offending party, receives and accepts an apology for the offence, 
and declares it forgiven — and this followed by a restoration of 
the courtesies of friendship. All this, and other considerations 
to be hereafter referred to, show that in no event could the of- 
fence have been the crime of adultery. It might have been the 
charge of the lesser offence, but it is not conceivable that Tilton, 
in view of his conduct, believed even that. Still further, that 
the so-called apology was not for the main offence Tilton him- 
self in his cross-examination clearly proves. Mark his words ! 
He says that the day after it was procured he was in Moulton's 
room and there met Mr. Beecher, when the following scene 
occurred : " He (Beecher) burst out in an expression of great 
sorrow to me, and said he hoped the communication which he 
had sent me by Mr. Moulton was satisfactory to me. He then 
27 



418 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

and there ' told Mr. Moulton' he had done wrong ; not so much 
as some others had (referring to his wife, who had made statements 
to Mr. Bowen that ought to be unmade); and he there volunteered 
to write a letter to Mr. Bowen concerning the facts which he had 
misstated." Here is clear light as to what the apology does not 
refer to. It disposes of the apology forever as a paper referring 
to adultery. It refers to nothing of the kind. 1£ the wrong 
done to which Mr. Beecher refers was adultery, how could these 
words be used in reference to it, " He had done wrong ; not so 
much as some others " f The absurdity of such a claim is clear. 
Those words and the apology are susceptible of but one con- 
struction. They refer, as Mr. Beecher says, to his deep regret 
for statements which he and his wife had, under certain infor- 
mation a few days before, made to Mr. Bowen, which led him 
to execute a purpose already entertained of removing Tilton 
from the Brooklyn Union and the Independent. It appears 
also that the next day Mr. Beecher* did write the letter to Mr. 
Bowen which Tilton says he volunteered to write, and which 
referred to Tilton's business troubles with Bowen. 

Next consider Moul ton's course with a view of still further 
testing what was in his mind as well as in Tilton's as to the 
character of the offence. If Moulton understood the charge to 
be adultery, then he is entitled to the credit of the invention or 
discovery that this crime could be the subject of an apology, 
and a ready forgiveness and reconciliation on the part of the 
offender and the injured husband. That Moulton did not 
believe or understand that the offence was adultery is shown by 
the same class of evidence that has been cited in reference to 
Tilton. He repeatedly declared to many persons there was no 
adultery. Fortunately we have a statement in writing setting 
forth Moul ton's estimate of the nature of the offence. 

Mr. Beecher wrote a letter dated June 1, 1873, to Moulton 
in which, among other things, he complains of Tilton's threat- 
ening and inconsistent conduct, and declares his purpose to 
waste no more energy in trying to satisfy Tilton who, at this 
time, was complaining of the publication of the tripartite agree- 
ment, so-called. In this letter Mr. Beecher says, "My mind 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 419 

is clear; I am not in haste; I shall write for the public a 
statement that will bear the light of the judgment day. God 
will take care of me and mine." These are not the words of a 
guilty mind. Moulton replies, on the same day. Publicity 
was no part of his profound policy, and he hastens to object. 
At first he writes these words, " If the truth must be spoken, 
let it be. I know you can stand if the whole case was pub- 
lished to-morrow." Apparently fearing this might rather tend 
to determine Mr. Beecher to publish the whole case than other- 
wise, he crossed out these and other lines with a pencil and 
commenced anew. In this new effort on the same paper these 
words occur: "You can stand if the whole case were published 
to-morrow." Moulton was right. The pity is that Mr. 
Beecher did not publish forthwith, and so become once more 
free and end the machinations of Tilton and the mutual friend. 
These two, whatever else they wanted or designed, did not 
believe their purposes would be then subserved by publicity. 
Tilton soon became gracious and kindly. But what shall be 
said of Moulton, who now asserts for the first time that adultery 
was the offence? Is it possible this man is so low in his moral 
perceptions as to believe that a minister of the gospel, and that 
too of Plymouth Church, could " stand" before his church and 
the world against the crime of adultery? No. Tilton says 
his wife was possessed of the idea that adultery with her pastor 
was all right, and no sin. That she did not discover her mis- 
take from reading Saint Paul, but Griffith Gaunt. But we 
have no evidence that this hallucination had reached and tainted 
the diplomatic mind of Moulton. It is right that we should 
say here that we do not believe the sinless character of adultery 
was a dogma believed in or even known to Mrs. Tilton, except 
perhaps as a notion of the "Woodhull school, of which her hus- 
band had become a disciple and shining light, and with which 
she had no sympathy. 

There is but one fair conclusion to be drawn from Moulton's 
letter of June 1 to Mr. Beecher. He knew that Mr. Beecher 
had been falsely accused of impure advances, and that he 
desired in his inmost soul to suppress the scandal. Yet if the 



420 THE TKUE HISTOKY OF 

simple truth were published he could "stand." Knowing this, 
he said so. Whatever Moulton may say now, since his malice 
has been excited by certain exposures, is of little consequence. 
He now openly stands with Tilton, where he has secretly been 
from the beginning. We claim, therefore, in view of these 
facts and circumstances, that the original charge of impure 
advances, false though it was, has been dropped by these ac- 
cusers, and adultery at this late day has been substituted as an 
after-thought. We brand this performance as a fraud that 
ought to end all controversy as to the innocence of Mr. Beecher. 

Pursuing the 'narrative a little further we find Moulton, who 
first appeared as Tilton's friend after procuring the so-called 
apology, quietly becoming the friend of both the parties — the 
mutual friend. Mr. Moulton, as he discloses his character in 
these proceedings, appears to be a very plausible man, with more 
vigor of will than conscience. One thing is unfortunately clear, 
that from this time on he contrived to obtain and hold the con- 
fidence of Mr. Beecher both in his ability and purpose to keep 
the peace in good faith. There was certainly room for an 
honest peacemaker. Mr. Beecher knew he had been falsely ac- 
cused of an impure offence, and that a reputable woman by 
some means had been induced to make the accusation. It is 
true the charge had been withdrawn, and its force was in a 
sense broken. Still the fact remained ; he had been accused. 

Mr. Beecher naturally felt that the situation was critical. 
For him, a clergyman of world-wide fame, to be even falsely 
accused was a calamity. To prevent publicity would save a 
still greater calamity. He felt — and in the light of results may 
we not say he was right ? — that a public charge of such an of- 
fence would, as he expressed it in his letter to Moulton of 
February 5, " make a conflagration." For reasons of malice 
and revenge it became apparent that Tilton was preparing to 
make a deadly assault upon him. This, Mr. Beecher believed, 
it was his supreme duty to prevent by all possible honorable 
means. Moulton professed to deprecate Til ton's purpose, and 
declared if Mr. Beecher would trust to him he could and would 
prevent it. And so now began a series of letters and steps 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 421 

under the direction and advice of the diplomatic mutual friend, 
having for their object, as Mr. Beecher believed, the suppression 
of the scandal and the restoration, in some measure, if practica- 
ble, of Tilton to position and employment. 

In passing judgment upon the means employed to secure these 
results, it is fair to remember that all through these four years 
Mr. Beecher was performing great labors, and had more and 
greater responsibilities upon him than at any other period of his 
life. Moulton said : " Leave these disagreeable matters to me. 
I will see that Tilton acts right. I will keep him in control. 
It is true, in certain moods he is threatening and unjust. But 
he soon recovers and is kind and reasonable." As time passed 
along it was evident that Tilton was most troublesome when he 
was unprosperous in business affairs. The reference iu his 
statement to " loss of peace and business" is significant. At 
times Mr. Beecher became discouraged, as indicated in his let- 
ters to Moultou. 

Much has been said, and not without some justice, of the ex- 
traordinary words and tenor of Mr. Beecher's letters. But in 
interpreting these letters it must be remembered : First, that 
Mr. Beecher, under the excitement of deep feeling, uses strong 
words and emotional expressions. This is and always has been 
a marked quality of his mind. Second, in this sore trouble he 
was dealing with Tilton, who had shown himself at times fickle, 
malicious, revengeful and mercenary. In the light of these 
facts there is not a letter from Mr. Beecher, nor an act of his, 
however ill judged, through these four years of anxiety and 
grief, that cannot be accounted for upon the plain theory that he 
was fighting to suppress an outrageous scandal which consisted 
of a false accusation against him made by a reputable woman ; 
and further, that he was endeavoring to help a man whom he 
felt he had unduly injured in business matters upon representa- 
tions which he was afterwards made to believe, chiefly by Moul- 
ton, were not well-founded. 

The statement of this branch of the case would not be com- 
plete without reference to the fact that Mr. Beecher had a warm 
friendship for Mrs. Tilton, which began in her early woman- 



422 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

hood, and that Mrs. Tilton, reciprocating this friendship, began, 
as her domestic troubles came on, to look more than ever to 
Mr. Beecher for sympathy and advice. That this feeling on 
Mrs. Tilton's part became, under the circumstances, so strong as 
to diminish the proper influence that belongs to every good 
husband is not unlikely. 

In the course of events, and especially in December, 1870, 
Mr. Beecher received the impression from Tilton and Moulton 
that he had estranged Mrs. Til ton's affections from her husband. 
The possibility that such a fact as this might be added to the 
responsibilities then resting upon Mr. Beecher constituted, as 
he expressed it in his letter of February 5, in part, one of 
" the environments that surrounded him." This was to him 
the occasion of deep grief and anguish. Mr. Beecher conceived 
that possibly he had been derelict in his duty — he, the strong 
man and pastor — in not repressing at once any undue affection 
for him on the part of this distressed Christian woman who was 
yearning for sympathy that she found not in her own household. 

And we cannot but express our regret at two errors into 
which it is apparent Mr. Beecher fell. 

While we recognize the appalling disaster which seemed 
imminent when he was confronted by a professedly injured 
husband, with a charge on the part of his wife of an impure 
proposal from him to her — a disaster which threatened to brand 
with infamy a name which, through years of public service as 
philanthropist and minister of God, had maintained the most 
honored place in the world's esteem — yet we feel that in an 
hour of such demoralization as this calamity might justly work, 
the pastor should have sought counsel from Christian men of 
his own brotherhood, rather than rely upon the counsel of a 
man of whom he knew so little, and whose character, as the 
sequel proved, he so sadly misjudged. 

And it is also apparent, from Mr. Beecher's own statement, 
in view of the profound sorrow into which he was plunged, and 
the expression which he gave to his feelings, that he had erred 
in not guarding so closely his relations with the family of Mr. 
Tilton that there could be no possibility for fear, in his own 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 423 

mind even, of an undue affection by Mrs. Tilton for him, 
through any heedless friendship o* agency of his. 

Mr. Tilton, in his statement before the committee, speaks of 
his home as one of unusual harmony — "an ideal home." But 
upon his cross-examination it clearly appeared that it was any- 
thing but a happy or harmonious home. 

The truth as to this is material, both as affecting Tilton's 
credibility and as showing the character of Mrs. Tilton 's domestic 
troubles, and the influences that reached her daily life. 

Her painful testimony reveals a jealous husband accusing her 
of infidelities with different men, and exerting a sensual influ- 
ence upon all. She declares that her husband had frequently 
compelled her, when sick, to copy, or from his dictation write, 
confessions which she herself did not understand, and, in her 
despairing condition of mind, cared little about. At times he 
threatened her, locked har up, and declared himself ashamed of 
her presence, when among friends whose society was more 
attractive to him. Her account reveals him full of selfish 
exactions; indifferent to her wants, neglectful in her illness; 
forcing disreputable women into her society till sometimes she 
fled for peace to the graves of her children. Mrs. Tilton 
declares he did not hesitate to avow his right to commit adultery 
on his lecturing tours whenever he chose. And yet, in season 
and out, we find this man dribbling out his charges of dishonor 
against his wife. This is a dismal revelation from the "ideal 
home " ; but one cannot read it and believe it possible that she 
has invented this recital of her husband's character and life. 

This account of the domestic misery of the Tilton family is 
corroborated by the testimony of several witnesses, and very 
fully by Miss Elizabeth A. Turner, who is now twenty-three 
years of age, and was an inmate of the family eight years. This 
young woman is a teacher of music in a ladies' seminary in 
Pennsylvania. She is a person of unusual intelligence, and her 
appearance and manner before the committee impressed all who 
heard her testify that she was sincere and reliable, and well 
understood the facts of which she was speaking. 

The condition of this family, in connection with the distress- 



424 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

ing circumstances referred to, and that appear in the history of 
this difficulty, conspired to make the occasion one full of peril, 
not only to Mr. Beecher, but to others whom he felt bound to 
protect to the last moment, to say nothing of the great interests 
of his beloved Plymouth Church, and other interests of high 
concern, all of which must be involved, if publicity should be 
given to the false and scandalous matter that was seeking ex- 
pression from the heated and malicious mind of Theodore Til- 
ton. Will innocent men pay black-mail? Will innocent men, 
and especially clergymen, fight as for their lives to suppress an 
injurious scandal, even though it be born of extortion, false- 
hood, and revenge ? These are questions that unhappily history 
has too often answered in the affirmative. It is easy, now that 
we see what manner of men Tilton and Moulton are, to wonder 
that Mr. Beecher should intrust any interest of his to their 
keeping. When we look back upon the record made by 
this sad story, we feel like visiting, even upon the suffering 
head and heart of our pastor, the severest censure. And this 
not the less because we revere and love him, and know that no 
man in all our land is more beloved. It is, we might say, be- 
cause he is so beloved — because in him centre so many and so 
great interests of church and humanity — because he stands to- 
day foremost among men of master minds, of eloquence and 
power, that we would chide him in no uncertain words for im- 
perilling so much and so often the precious interests confided to 
him by the God who made him, and who we have unshaken 
faith to believe will deliver him from all dangers. 

The charge made by the accuser is one easily preferred, and 
not easily disproved. It is not enough for the accuser to 
say : " I make this charge, now let it be disproved or be taken 
as confessed." All tribunals, both ecclesiastical and legal, in 
their wisdom have required, in determining charges of this kind, 
such proof of facts and circumstances as point unmistakably to 
the guilt of the accused, and are not consistent with any theory 
of innocence. Lord Stowell, as cited by Greenleaf, one of the 
best writers known to our jurisprudence, and especially on rules 
of evidence, says : 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 425 

" Jn every case, almost, the fact is inferred from circumstances that 
lead to it by fair inference as a necessary conclusion ; and unless this were 
the case, and unless this were so held, no protection whatever could be 
given to marital rights. "What are the circumstances which lead to such a 
conclusion, cannot be laid down universally, though many of them of a 
more obvious nature and of more frequent occurrence, are to be found 
in the ancient books ; at the same time it is impossible to indicate them 
universally, because they may be infinitely diversified by the situation 
and character of the parties, by the state of general manners, and by 
many other incidental circumstances, apparently slight and delicate in 
themselves, but which may have most important bearings in decisions 
upon the particular case. The only general rule that can be laid down 
upon the subject is, that the circumstances must be such as would lead 
the guarded discretion of a reasonable and just man to the conclusion; 
for it is not to lead to a rash and intemperate judgment moving upon 
appearances that are equally capable of two interpretations." 

Greenleaf further illustrates the kind of evidence required to 
prove adultery as follows: 

"Adultery of the wife may be proved by the birth of a child and non- 
access of the husband, he being out of the realm. Adultery of the hus- 
band may be proved by habits of adulterous intercourse, and by the 
birth, maintenance, and acknowledgment of a child. A married man 
going into a known brothel raises a suspicion of adultery, to be rebutted 
only by the very best evidence. His going there and remaining alone 
for some time in a room with a common prostitute is sufficient proof of 
the crime. The circumstance of a woman going to such a place with a 
man furnishes similar proof of adultery." 

These citations are pointed but useful. 

Under the guidance of these precedents and principles it is 
essential to observe that there is nothing whatever disclosed by 
the evidence that proves that the accused parties have ever been 
found together under any suspicious circumstances, such as in 
some unusual house or place, or consulting together in some 
secret way to avoid observation and exposure. There is no 
proof of clandestine correspondence, nor attempts in that direc- 
tion. Mr. Beecher's letters were, as a rule, opened, arranged, 
and read by his wife. She testifies that she has read and an- 
swered as many as one thousand in three months. Such as 
reached the Christian Union office were opened by others, and 
those that went to the church were opened, by the direction of 



426 THE TKUE HISTORY OF 

Mr. Beecher, by the clerk, before being placed on the desk. 
No sort of restrictions were imposed as to his letters. The 
usual facts and circumstances suggestive of wrong-doing are 
utterly wanting in this case. What then does the case, as put 
by the accuser, rest upon ? We answer, Upon mere words and 
assertions, supported by no circumstances whatever that are the 
usual indications of adultery. 

Til ton says he knows the fact from his wife's confession, July 
3, 1870, and from her subsequent confession to Moulton and to 
her mother, Mrs. Morse. This is thus answered : First, that 
Mrs. Tilton says in effect that this confession, whatever it was, 
was extorted from her by an imperious, malicious husband, and 
by means that, in a moral sense, were fraudulent. Pretences 
were made that she must say something to extricate Theodore 
out of his business perplexities. She was made to believe 
there was a conspiracy against her husband. The fact that 
Mrs. Tilton withdrew the charge when Mr. Beecher. first con- 
fronted her after he had heard of it, on the evening of Decem- 
ber 30, is in order in this connection, together with the further 
fact that she has ever since denied the truth of the charge when 
free from the dominating influence of her husband. She ex- 
plicitly denies that the charge was adultery. We now see her 
coming before the committee with expressions of joy that at 
last she can come and speak the truth ; and in the most solemn 
manner she denies absolutely the charge, and proceeds to set 
forth facts and circumstances which demonstrate that this un- 
happy woman has for years been the plastic victim of extorted 
falsehoods. Tilton's allegation that she confessed to her mother, 
Mrs. Morse, is pronounced false by the mother, who testified 
before the committee. The source of the scandal, then, is 
alleged words of Mrs. Tilton, which she explains in such a 
manner as to deprive the allegation of all force and credit. 
Then comes Mr. Beecher, who solemnly declares that whatever 
words, by whatever means, have been drawn from Mrs. Tilton 
by her husband, he is innocent of any and all impropriety 
towards her, whether relating to improper advances or to 
adultery. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 427 

It is not for the committee to defend the course of Mrs. Til- 
ton. Her conduct, upon any theory of human responsibility, 
is indefensible. Our hope is that it may be made clear, as the 
testimony affords much reason to believe it may be, that this 
distressed woman was so beset by her designing husband, when 
in states of mind differiug little, if at all, from mental aberra- 
tion, brought on by illness and domestic sorrow and gloom, 
as to induce her, at least passively, to make a charge of im- 
proper advances by Mr. Beecher. But when her attention was 
pointedly called to the great wrong she had done, she quickly 
took it back in sorrow and penitence as follows : 

" December 30, 1870. 

" Wearied with importunity and weakened by sickness, I gave a letter 
implicating' my friend Henry Ward Beecher, under assurances that that 
would remove all difficulties between me and my husband. That letter 
I now revoke. I was persuaded to it — almost forced — when I was in a 
weakened state of mind. I regret it and recall all its statements. 

" E. R. Tilton. 

" I desire to say explicitly Mr. Beecher has never offered any im- 
proper solicitation, but has always treated me in a manner becoming a 
Christian and a gentleman. " Elizabeth It. Tilton." 

There is medical testimony before the committee, given by 
two eminent physicians, Doctors Minton and Corey, to the 
effect that such cases of mental power and domination by a 
husband of strong will over a wife weakened by disease and 
domestic trouble are not infrequent. Dr. Corey, who is emi- 
nent and has had large experience in mental diseases and 
phenomena, says such conduct on the part of Mrs. Tilton, when 
subjected to the influences referred to, is even consistent with 
an honest mind. We observe that Moulton parades a letter 
purporting to have been written by Mrs. Tilton to him (J J), 
in which she says she is "a perfect coward in his (Til ton's) 
presence," and u it is a physical impossibility for me to tell the 
truth." In another letter, same to same, "KK," she says, 
"With all my woman's soul I am innocent of the crime of 
impure conduct alleged against me." In her statement, pro- 
cured under the direction of Tilton and Carpenter, of December 
16, 1872, and which was taken by them to Dr. Storrs, Mrs. 



428 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Tilton shows that she was made to believe that a conspiracy- 
was formed against her husband. Her words are : " Six 
months afterwards (that is, after July 3, 1870), my husband 
felt impelled by the circumstances of a conspiracy against him, 
ill which Mrs. Beecher had a part, to have an interview with 
Mr. Beecher." This refers to the interview of Tilton with Mr. 
Beecher, procured by Moulton on the evening of December 30, 
1870, when Tilton produced a written charge, in two lines, in 
the handwriting of Mrs. Tilton. It will be seen it was under 
the influence of startling statements of conspiracy against her 
husband that Mrs. Tilton was moved to appear to act on this 
occasion. We find her subsequently in a letter asking Mr. 
Beecher's "forgiveness for the sufferings she had caused him." 
We hear much from Tilton of confessions made by his wife 
to him. We are obliged to receive his statements on this point, 
if at all, without corroboration. But on one occasion, when 
Tilton was assailing his wife, we learn from the testimony of 
Miss Elizabeth A. Turner in what manner Tilton's accusations 
were met by his wife. Question — " Did he (Tilton) at any 
time on this day say that she had made any confession to him 
in regard to Mr. Beecher?" Answer — u He said she had con- 
fessed to him that she had been criminally intimate with Mr. 
Beecher; she (Mrs. Tilton) was present when he said that, and 
she said, 'Oh, Theodore, how can you tell that child such base 
lies?' and then she burst out crying." Question — "When 
w r as that?" Answer — " This all oecurr-ed on the day that we 
went back in the fall of 1870." This was the day when this 
witness testifies that a scene of violence occurred. The witness, 
believing that Tilton was about to strike his wife, interfered to 
save her, and was knocked down by Tilton. This witness is 
the same person who it is said by Tilton and Moulton was sent 
to boarding-school to get rid of her, because she had heard Til- 
ton make charges against Beecher. It is further said that Mr. 
Beecher was so anxious to have her leave town and keep away, 
that he paid some $2000 for her school expenses. There is no 
doubt the $2000 were paid, but for quite another purpose. 
Miss Turner and Mrs. Tilton both agree in saying that it was 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 429 

Tilton's plan to have her go away, because she had stated to 
her friends that Tilton had twice attempted intimate relations 
with her while in bed and during the absence of Mrs. Tilton in 
the country. Tilton was fast losing place and position because 
of his social views and practices, and feared the publicity of this 
girl's statement, who at that time was twenty years of age. The 
absurdity of supposing that Mr. Beecher would invest $2000 
apiece to get persons to leave town to whom Tilton had been 
peddling his scandal against him, is transparent. Such persons 
to whom Tilton had talked in some form of the scandal, some- 
times in one shape and then in another, were too numerous to 
justify an investment of $2000 on each of them by anybody 
whose wealth could not be counted by millions. 

It should be noted that just as Miss Turner was leaving for 
the boarding-school, Tilton procured from her with the aid of 
his obliging wife, a letter retracting his improper liberties. 
Here again we find Tilton a manufacturer of evidence. 

It is not for us to pass judgment on Mrs. Tilton uncharitably. 
She has suffered unparalleled trials. Moulton quotes her as say- 
ing in a letter to him, as we have seen, that it was physically 
impossible for her to tell the truth in her husband's presence. 
It will be noted that the pretended confession was obtained, in 
that presence ; and, further, it was when she was away from 
him and from home at Schoharie that she stated her sin to be 
like that of Catharine Gaunt, an undue affection for her pastor. 
In this letter to her husband she says: "I felt unfalteringly 
that the love I felt and received harmed no one, not even you, 
until the heavenly vision dawned upon me." And again : " Oh, 
my dear Theodore, though your opinions are not restful or con- 
genial to my soul, yet my integrity and purity are a sacred and 
holy thing to me. Bless God with me for Catharine Gaunt, 
and for all the sure leadings of an all wise and loving Provi- 
dence." This letter was written June 29, 1871, about a year 
after the pretended confession. In no sense can its words be 
construed as referring to adultery. Tilton, when before the 
committee, when reference was first made to this Schoharie let- 
ter, seemed to think that the offence in the story of Griffith 



430 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Gaunt was adultery, and accordingly relied upon this letter as 
incontrovertible evidence of his charge. In this he was mistaken. 
It is a principle of the common law that a married woman can- 
not commit or be held to commit a crime perpetrated in the 
presence of her husband, and this upon the idea that the hus- 
band's presence and influence amount to duress, and that she is 
therefore not responsible. 

Whether it is necessary to invoke this rule of law to excuse 
Mrs. Tilton or not, we may see in what Til ton was able to 
extort from her without her volition or real assent, something 
of the reasons which moved the early expounders of the Eng- 
lish common law to assert the doctrine referred to. 

We have now reviewed, as briefly as we could, the evidence 
before us. Tiiere are many facts and details we have not dis- 
cussed. We have cited the more important of these, and dis- 
cussed the salient points. We have carefully examined the 
evidence relied on by the accuser to sustain the charges we are 
asked to believe. 

Finally, who is this accuser, that he makes so bold a face ? 
We may learn from the testimony, as well as by common report, 
without descending to unpleasant particulars or personalities, 
that Theodore Tilton has in recent years become a very different 
man from what he was formerly reputed to be. He will hardly 
deny that. Both before and after his espousal of the new mari- 
tal philosophy, signs of degeneracy were setting in which have 
made him a discredited man in this community. In the new 
role, his culmination and downfall are well stated in recent 
words by an able writer who, in sketching his career, says that, 
"In process of time he comes before the world as the indorser 
of Victoria C. Woodhull, and lends his name to a biography of 
her which would have sunk any man's reputation anywhere for 
common sense. Such a book is a tomb from which no author 
rises again. " Such is the accuser. W^ho is the accused ? It 
is Henry Ward Beecher. The pastor of Plymouth Church has 
been a clergyman with harness on forty years. Twenty-seven 
of these years he has been here in this pulpit which as all the 
world knows has so often been stirred to good deeds and to 
a better life by his eloquent ministrations. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 431 

This man has been living in the clear light of noonday, before 
his people and before all men, a life of great Christian useful- 
ness and incessant work. None have known him but to admire 
and love him. They who have been most intimate with him 
at home and abroad report nothing of his life or conversation 
but what comes of purity of soul. We are asked by Theodore 
Tilton and his coadjutor, Moulton, to believe that this man, 
with his long and useful life and high character to sustain him, 
is unworthy of our confidence, regard, or respect. Christian 
character and great services, which are usually considered a 
tower of strength and defence when one is assailed, are to go for 
naught, according to Mr. Tilton. We are invited to give up 
this beloved and eminent man and send him and his good name 
and fame into the vortex of moral destruction. We are to do 
this, upon what? Upon some wild, absurd and contradictory 
assertions of Mr. Tilton, who in all this work does not succeed 
in disguising his malicious and revengeful designs. 

No tribunal administering justice ever held a charge of adul- 
tery proved by mere alleged words, w r ritten or spoken, that 
are denied and not connected with circumstances and appear- 
ances pointing unmistakably to the guilt of the accused. Upon 
a review of all the evidence, made with an earnest desire to find 
the truth and to advise what truth and justice shall require, we 
feel bound to state that, in our judgment, the evidence relied 
on by the accuser utterly fails to sustain the charges made. 

We herewith submit a complete stenographic copy of all the 
evidence before the committee, with some unimportant or irrel- 
evant exceptions. 

STATEMENT OF CONCLUSIONS. 

Fikst. — We find from the evidence that the Rev. Henry 
Ward Beecher did not commit adultery with Mrs. Elizabeth R. 
Tilton, either at the time or times, place or places, set forth in 
the third and fourth sub-divisions of Mr. Tilton's statement, 
nor at any other time or place whatever. 

Second. — We find from the evidence that Mr. Beecher has 
never comtsaitted any unchaste or improper act with Mrs. Tilton, 



432 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

nor made any unchaste or improper remark, proffer, or solicita- 
tion to her of any kind or description whatever. 

Third. — If this were a question of errors of judgment on 
the part of Mr. Beecher, it would be easy to criticise, especially 
in the light of recent events. In such criticism, even to the 
extent of regrets and censure, w T e are sure no man would join 
more sincerely than Mr. Beecher himself. 

Fourth. — We find nothing whatever in the evidence that 
should impair the perfect confidence of Plymouth Church or 
the world in the Christian character and integrity of Henry 
Ward Beecher. 

And now let the peace of God, that passeth all understanding, 
rest and abide with Plymouth Church, and her beloved and 
eminent pastor, so much and so long afflicted. 
Henry W. Sage, 
Augustus Storks, 

Henry M. Cleveland, I Committee of 
Horace B. Claflin, | Investigation. 
John Winslow, 
S. V. White, J 

Dated Brooklyn, August 27, 1874. 

[Having presented the Report of the Committee of Investi- 
gation as above, the Report of the Examining Committee to the 
church concludes as follows:] 

The evidence taken has also been transmitted to us. Most 
of it has already been made public. The publication of the re- 
mainder will be considered by us at a further meeting — one 
point, however, being settled : that nothing shall be withheld 
from publication which can afford a pretext for censure of the 
pastor of this church. The expediency of publishing evidence 
injurious to other parties is a question which cannot be hastily 
determined. While we should have unhesitatingly done our 
duty in case a different conclusion had been reached, we rejoice 
to say that, without one dissenting voice, this committee find 
nothing in the evidence to justify the least suspicion of our 
pastor's integrity and purity, and everything to justify and 
commend, on the part of Plymouth Church and the Society, a 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 433 

degree of confidence and affection toward its pastor greater, if 
possible, than it has ever yet felt to him. 

It is not the office of this committee to review his errors of 
judgment in managing a complex trouble, and struggling 
against the most infamous conspiracy known to the present age. 
It is for us simply to consider what moral culpability, if any, is 
developed upon his part; and of this we find no proof, although, 
under a delusion artfully brought about by his enemies, our 
pastor was for a long time made to believe himself in fault. 

In conclusion, we recommend to the church the adoption of 
the following resolutions : 

Resolved, That the evidence laid before the Examining Committee 
not only does not afford any foundation for putting the pastor of this 
church, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, on trial, but. on the contrary, 
establishes, to the perfect satisfaction of his church, his entire innocence 
and absolute personal purity with respect to all the charges now or here- 
tofore made against him by Theodore Tilton. 

Resolved, That our confidence in and love for our pastor, so far from 
being diminished, is heightened and deepened by the unmerited suffer- 
ings which he has so long borne, and that we welcome him with a sym- 
pathy more tender and a trust more unbounded than we ever felt before 
to his public labors among us, to our church, our families, our homes, 
and our hearts. 

P. W. Tallmadge, 
Clerk of Examining Committee. 



XXVIII. 

SCENE AT PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 

The meeting at Plymouth Church, upon the occasion of the 
presentation of the report of the committee, was one of the most 
remarkable ever held within the walls of that edifice. Long before 
eight o'clock, the hour appointed for the meeting, a large crowd 
had assembled in the street, and was increased, as the time passed 
on, by fresh arrivals. When the doors were thrown open, there 
was a rush for the floor and galleries, and in less than an hour 
the vast interior of the church was filled in every part. A large 
part of the audience consisted of persons who were not raera- 
28 



434 THE TKUE HISTORY OF 

bers of the congregation, but had been drawn to the meeting by 
their sympathy with Mr. Beecher. 

The meeting was called to order at eight o'clock, and Mr. 
James Freeland, the oldest member of the Society, was chosen 
Moderator. On the platform were seated the members of the 
committee, assistant pastor Halliday, Mr. Shearman, the clerk, 
and several prominent members of the church. Professor 
Raymond was chosen to read the report of the two committees, 
because of his excellence in elocution. The report of the Inves- 
tigating Committee was presented as the report of the sub- 
committee of the Examining Committee. Mr. Raymond read 
both documents in a clear, strong voice, which could be heard 
in all parts of the church, and accompanied his reading with 
appropriate gestures and emphasis, which grew more vehement 
as he warmed up to his work. He was frequently interrupted 
by loud and uncontrollable bursts of applause. The first of 
these outbursts greeted the following passage of the report: — 
"It is an amazing pity that at this juncture Mr. Moulton 
was not turned over to the police." When the reader read 
these words of the report : " No one will believe, for instance, 
that Mr. Beecher said, ' I humble myself before him (Tilton) 
as I do before my God/ " the audience broke into loud and 
derisive laughter. 

When the reading was about half finished, the attention of 
the audience was partly withdrawn from the reader by the 
appearance of Mr. Moulton in the congregation. He had 
entered the church by a side door, and his presence was not 
immediately discovered. He pushed his way through the crowd 
up to the platform, and stood for some moments listening quietly 
and with an unmoved countenance to the reading of the report. 
At length he obtained a seat by one of the tables used by the 
reporters for the press. Here he wrote the following note to 
the presiding officer of the meeting : " Mr. Moderator, I am 
here, and want to say a word." 

Moulton's presence was now known to the entire audience, 
and a general feeling of indignation was aroused by what was 
considered by the vast throng his effrontery in presenting him- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 435 

self at the meeting. " When the committee saw him, there was 
a good deal of hurried whispering among them, and Mr. Moul- 
ton's desire to speak was sharply discussed. Little deference 
was paid to the Moderator's opinion. Mr. Shearman favored 
permitting him to speak. Some members of the committee did 
object, but one of them was very positively determined that 
Moulton should not be heard. Leaning forward, he said to 
the Moderator, ' If Moulton rises to speak, I'll rise to a point 
of order, and I want you to recognize me.' " 

At the conclusion of the reading of the report, it was moved 
that the resolutions presented by the committee be adopted by 
the church. 

Upon this motion, Mr. W. H. Blair addressed the meeting. 
He expressed entire agreement with the resolutions and the 
report, complimented the committee upon the discharge of their 
difficult duty, and proceeded to bespeak for any who might 
have dissenting views a calm, full and patient hearing. "J 
think," said the speaker, "I may promise them an oppor- 
tunity, in your name, to be heard. I adjure them, if any 
such there be, to speak now, or forever after hold their peace." 
These sentiments received the heartiest response from the 
meeting. 

Mr. Moulton at once rose to his feet, and endeavored to 
address the meeting, but was prevented by loud cries from the 
audience for Professor Raymond, who at once replied in a 
speech of considerable length, in which he reviewed the case, 
and sharply criticised both Moulton and Tilton. In the course 
of his remarks he said : " It would not do for Mr. Beecher to have 
replied at once to the charges of Tilton, and then to have called 
upon Moulton to back up his (Beecher's) statement. Moulton 
had poisoned the mind of the public with his infernal lies." 
Moulton was at this moment sitting near the edge of the plat- 
form, and close by Mr. Raymond. He rose to his feet, and, 
looking Raymond full in the face, said to him, loudly enough 
to be heard throughout the church, " You are a liar, sir ! " 
Half the audience had risen with him, so intense was the 
excitement. Mr. Raymond, taken completely by surprise by 



436 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Moulton's unlooked-for interruption, paused, and Moulton 
repeated his words loudly, " You are a liar, sir ! " In an instant 
the pent-up anger of the audience broke forth. Great confusion 
and excitement followed. Men struggled to get at Moulton, 
with the intention of chastising him, but were prevented by the 
density of the crowd. Cries of " Put him out ! " " He has no 
right here !" came from all parts of the house. Moulton was 
cool and self-possessed, and turned to a gentleman near him 
and said coldly, speaking with reference to the threat to eject 
him, " You can't do it, sir; you can't do it." A this moment 
the excitement was so intense that no one could say what would 
be the result, and it seemed likely that Moulton would pay 
dearly for his temerity in venturing into the midst of the people 
whose feelings he had so cruelly outraged. Captain Byrne, of 
the city police force, forced his way through the crowd, and 
took his stand by Moulton's chair, to protect him from violence. 
He was dressed in plain clothes, but wore his shield. At the 
same moment a policeman in uniform pushed through the 
throng, and placed himself by his commander. Captain Byrne 
said, in a low tone, to Moulton, "If you attempt any disturb- 
ance, I shall take you out." Assistant Pastor Halliday came 
to the front of the platform, and in a few earnest words asked 
the audience to restrain their feelings and preserve order. 
Pointing to Moulton, he said, "Let him remain; sit down and 
let him hear." His appeal was successful, and Mr. Eaymond 
resumed his remarks without further interruption. 

Mr. Raymond, upon concluding his address, sat down under 
a burst of applause, and Mr. Shearman read the resolutions 
again to the church. The motion for the adoption of the reso- 
lutions was made again. "All those in favor," said the Mod- 
erator, "will signify it by saying aye." There was a loud roar 
of "aye" from three thousand voices that shook the building to 
the foundation. " We must have a rising vote," said the Mod- 
erator, smiling. " All those in favor of this motion will sig- 
nify it by rising ; " the whole audience, with the exception of 
Mr. Moulton, rose. "Count them," cried a voice from the 
throng. A laugh greeted this sally. The Moderator said there 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 437 

were about three thousand persons voting in the affirmative as 
near as could be reckoned. " All those opposed/' he added as 
the audience resumed their seats, " will rise." There was a 
hush of expectancy, in the midst of which one man rose to his 
feet It was Francis D. Moulton. He stood until the Mod- 
erator noticed him, and a storm of hisses broke from the con- 
gregation. Mr. Ovington called to Moulton to sit down, and 
appealed to the policeman to put him out of the building. 
" He's not a church member, and has no right to vote," he 
added. In a moment the church rang again with the cries of 
" Put him out," and a scene of indescribable confusion set in. 
It was finally quieted after Moulton had resumed his seat, and 
a vote of thanks to the committee and to the Council engaged 
in the case was passed, Mr. Moulton again voting " no." 

The organ now burst forth «into the strains of " Old Hun- 
dred," rising high above the confusion which broke out again 
upon Moulton's last vote, and the congregation began to sing 
the doxology, " Praise God from whom all blessings flow." 
Moulton took his hat to go, and, accompanied by Captain 
Byrne and the policeman, moved towards the door. Instantly 
there was a rush in the same direction by a number of the more 
excitable portion of the audience. In the lobby several other 
policemen were in waiting, and it was evident that their pres- 
ence was necessary. As Moulton passed out into the hall hisses, 
jeers, and insults met him on every side; but he passed along 
between his protectors in silence. 

" Rush him ! rush him ! " " Kill him ! " " Give him hell !" 
was shouted by the angry crowd in waiting for him in the lobby. 

One lady cried out, " Iago ! " 

In the lobby the police formed a cordon around Mr. Moulton, 
who said he did not require their protection. When he reached 
the passage-way by the side of the church he found that all the 
protection he could get was necessary. An angry crowd was 
waiting for him, and but for a vigilant watchfulness on the 
part of the policemen would have done him bodily harm. He 
was " rushed" from the side doors of the church to a carriage, 
hustled into the carriage, and it was only the courage of the 



438 THE TRUE, HISTORY OF 

policemen and the presence of Captain Byrne that prevented 
Mr. Moulton receiving personal chastisement on the spot. Yells 
and shouts of indignation followed him as the carriage was 
driven rapidly away, and he escaped from Plymouth meeting 
alive and with unbroken bones, thanks to policemen and their 
ready clubs. 

It was greatly regretted by the more steady members of 
Plymouth Church that their more excitable brethren had given 
way to their feelings on this occasion ; but it was admitted that 
there were extenuating circumstances to plead for the latter. 
Mr. Moulton had outraged the feelings of the congregation to 
an extent which can scarcely be understood by an outsider by 
his treatment of their pastor, and his appearance in their midst 
under the circumstances was regarded by them as a deliberate 
insult. Hence their indignation got the better of their dis- 
cretion. 

XXIX. 

MR. MOULTON EXPLAINS HIS ACTION. 

Mr. Moulton's appearance at Plymouth Church meet- 
ing having excited considerable comment, he addressed 
the following card to the public in explanation of it : 

To the Public: 

I will explain the reason of my attendance at Plymouth 
Church last evening. Immediately after the publication of my 
extended statement of August 21, I left the city to attend to 
some business affairs in New England, not returning until yes- 
terday morning. During my absence I learned, to my surprise, 
from the public prints, that I had refused to submit to cross- 
examination by the committee, and that the committee's forth- 
coming report would state this for a fact. I immediately sent 
by telegraph the following message to the committee : 

Lowell, Mass., August 27. 
" To Jeremiah P. Robinson or Franklin Woodruff, 44 Front street, 
N. Y. : — I lino in the Boston Globe the following : ' They (the committee) 
have asked him (Moulton) three times to submit to cross-examination 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 439 

and he has as often ignored the request.' I have neither received such 
request nor made such declination, but have held and hold my self ready- 
to appear on notice. Inform Henry VV. Sage, the chairman, of this at 
once. "Francis D. Moulton." 

Having sent the above message, and not wishing to de^ay the 
committee, I took the first train home in order to meet the com- 
mittee before the time appointed for the presentation of their 
report to the church. On reaching Brooklyn yesterday morn- 
ing, I learned that my telegram had been promptly communi- 
cated on the previous day to Mr. Sage by Mr. Woodruff in per- 
son. I waited for a message from the committee, but none came. 

At length, the hour having arrived for the public reading of 
the committee's report, I went to the church to hear it. 

My right to speak was the same as that possessed by any 
other person there present, for 1 have been a member of the 
congregation for many years, and my wife a member of t l he 
church. 

During the reading of the report I was pained to hear its 
misrepresentations of me, and I felt it my duty, as it certainly 
was my right, to ask for the correction of these before the report 
was put to vote. In order that I might treat the meeting with 
entire courtesy, I wrote to the chairman a brief note, as fol- 
lows : 

"Mr. Moderator : I am here and want to say a word. 

" Francis D. Moulton." 

Notwithstanding this request, and notwithstanding Mr. 
Blair's speech adjuring any member of the church and con- 
gregation who had aught to say against the report to speak 
then and there, or ever after hold his peace, and notwithstand- 
ing my equal right with Mr. Blair himself, I was not permitted 
to be heard. 

During the proceedings a young man, Mr. Raymond, whom 
Mr. Beecher had once brought to me saying that I could confer 
with him in his (Mr. B.'s) absence, chose to fling down upon 
me some false and offensive words to my dishonor, in reply to 
which I felt it incumbent on me to characterize him in language 
appropriate to the provocation, and for which I know no Eng- 
lish equivalent. 



440 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Mr. Raymond vaunted himself as the only member of the- 
congregation who, with the exception of Mr. Beecher's lawyers, 
knew all the facts of the case. Mr. Raymond will be chagrined 
to learn that I have a letter from Mr. Beecher, in which the 
writer says that he (Mr. R.) knows nothing whatever of the 
facts of the case. 

I will add that the hearing which was last night denied to 
me in the place where I had the most right to demand and 
expect it, I shall ask for from the public at large in a few days. 
The only delay in the publication will arise from the prepara- 
tion of fac-simile copies of letters and papers, including Mr. 
Beecher's written certificate of Mr. Raymond's safe and trust- 
worthy ignorance of the case. 

I have sought for four years, for the sake of the innocent 
children of two families, to shield Mr. Beecher from the expo- 
sure of his crime of adultery. But Mr. Beecher, his committee, 
and his church, have united to compel me, for my own self- 
protection, to reveal him to the world, as I shall shortly do in 
a still worse light than that wherein he now stands. 

(Signed) Francis D. Moulton. 

Brooklyn, August 29, 1874. 

P. S. — Mr. Blair's remarks, referred to above, are the fol- 



"If there be any in this church that have dissenting views in refer- 
ence to the report, I bespeak for them a calm, full and fair hearing. I 
think, sir. I may promise to them in your name an opportunity to be 
heard. I adjure them, if such there be, now to speak, or else forever 
after hold their peace." 

Mr. Raymond's remarks are the following : 

" I am the only man, by a concurrence of circumstances, in Ply- 
mouth Church or in the United States to-day, not a member of the 
committee and not a lawyer before the committee, who happens to 
know all about it." 

In a conversation with a reporter for one of the New- 
York papers, Mr. Moulton said, referring to the scene 
at the church : 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 441 

" It was one of the worst exhibitions of moral cowardice I 
ever witnessed. I stood there one man ! yes, one man against 
three thousand, and yet those having charge of the meeting 
dared not trust my statement to the audience." 

"What prompted you to attend the meeting, Mr. Moul- 
ton?" "Well, I had a right to be there, and to vote, and 
would assist me upon being put in possession of the facts of the 
case." 

" What do you propose to do, in view of the present state of 
affairs?" " I'll tell you. I am preparing a statement, which 
is nearly completed, and I shall make it public early in the 
week, accompanied by fac-similes of letters from Beecher and a 
number of other persons, which have not yet been published." 
(Excitedly)— "I say, sir, that Plymouth Church, if I choose— 
an indefeasible right, legal and technical. First, because my 
wife is a member, and I represent her; and, again, because I 
myself am a member of the church. I really went, however, 
simply as a listener, to hear what might be said, but the 
repeated attacks upon my character and credibility prompted 
me to attempt a reply in vindication." 

" To what particular statement did you refer when Mr. Ray- 
mond called you a liar in his harangue ? " " It referred gen- 
erally to Raymond's attack upon myself, but more specially to 
his assertion that he knew more about this scandal than almost 
any other person. Relative to that declaration let me say Mr. 
Raymond came to me with a letter from Mr. Beecher to the 
effect that Raymond was his friend ; he has not counted the 
costs of the issue they have made with me, and before I am 
through with the matter, I will grind Mr. Shearman to powder, 
that I will ! " 

" Will you indicate what the tenor of your forthcoming state- 
ment is?" " It will deal less with Mr. Beecher's relations to 
Mrs. Tilton than with other women with whom Mr. Beecher 
has indulged in criminal intercourse. Mr. Beecher has con- 
fessed adultery to me and to another person ; but the name of 
that other person has not yet been given. I shall give the 
name in my forthcoming statements, and that person can sub- 



442 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

stantiate my declaration on that point. I do not wish it for- 
gotten that my previous statement was prepared before that of 
Mr. Beecher's was given to the public. It was the original state- 
ment, written by me in response to the invitation ot the com- 
mittee to appear before them, but I withheld it, and substituted 
a shorter and modified statement, from friendly motives toward 
Mr. Beecher ; and yet, after such an exhibition of friendship 
toward him, Beecher made a bitter personal attack upon me. 1 
felt that after the appearance of such a document I was justi- 
fied in making public my original statement. And now, after 
the manifestations of the last few days, and especially the spirit 
shown in Plymouth Church on Friday evening, a proper self- 
respect demands that I should show up Mr. Beecher in his true 
character." 

To another reporter Mr. Moulton said : " Why, I've kept 
the doors of Plymouth Church open for the last four years. In 
each of these four years Mr. Beecher has come to me and asked 
whether the sale of pews in Plymouth Church could go on. 
Up to the time of this act of bad faith toward me by Mr. 
Beecher, I have been liis protector. I protected him against 
the Woodhull scandal. I protected him against the Bacon 
letter, and I even protected him against Tilton's statement. My 
friendship for Mr. Beecher had been of a deep and emotional 
character. At the altar of Plymouth Church I held a dear 
child while I consecrated it in baptism. That child subse- 
quently died, and thus I was bound to Mr. Beecher by the 
tenderest memories. He made a confession to me of having had 
criminal intercourse with a lady of his congregation, but this 
lady was not Mrs. Tilton. Even after such confidential revela- 
tions I held my peace, and acted for peace, influenced not only 
by my personal friendship for Mr. Beecher, but by a desire to 
save the cause of morality and Christianity ." 

The Graphic, of August 29, published the following 
interview between Moulton and one of its reporters : 

Mr. Francis D. Moulton was found at an early hour this 
morning in his library, looking " as fresh as a lark " after his 






THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 443 

adventure and escape from the hands of the Plymouth Church 
mob last evening. He was reading letters. The dramatic na- 
ture of the scene created by his appearance in the church during 
the reading of the report had already produced proofs of its 
eifect on the public. 

" This is what people in New York seem to think of it," said 
he. " Hear this note : " 

Moultox :— Hurrah for you ! One amongst three thousand. 

It was signed by one of the best known men in New York. 
Selecting another letter from the pile, written by a New York 
lawyer that stands among the first in his profession, he read as 
follows : 

If I had been at your house last evening I should have peremptorily- 
closed the doors against your going to the Plymouth Church meeting, 
but if 1 could have known what was to happen there, I should have been 
the first to keep them open. 

Mr. Moulton said he had lately been in receipt of over two 
hundred letters indorsing his course in the matter. 

"I thought I ought to goto the meeting," he continued, 
thoughtfully. "I knew I had a right to be there, and that in 
a special manner I had a right to speak. A direct attack was 
made upon me, and mere regard for consistency and my own 
self-respect would have prompted me to be present. I did not 
expect the scene that resulted. I did not go armed. If I had 
known that I was to be pressed upon by a mob incited by 
cries of ' Knock him down!' ' Shoot him!' and the like, 
perhaps it would have been otherwise. The pleasantest thing 
that has happened to me since the meeting was a call from 
Captain Byrne. If it had not been for his protection and that 
of his men last night I cannot tell what would have happened. 
He had seen me enter the church and face the whole angry 
partisan mob without flinching, and had himself been called 
upon to put me out of the church. He came to me of his own 
accord to say that it was the pluckiest thing he had ever seen. 
He said (laughing) that I was the best behaved man in the 
church. Now how is that from a policeman's point of view?" 

"No!" — and Mr. Moulton brought his clenched fist down 



444 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

upon the table with a blow that shook the glass globes in the 
chandeliers — " I certainly did not flinch. I believe I was, in 
fact, the coolest man in the whole throng. I went in there 
having something to say. They would not let me say it, and 
I came out again." 

" What would you have said, Mr. Moulton, if you had been 
allowed to speak ? " 

"Said? (laughing). Well, there's one thing I would have 
done. I would have read a letter from Mr. Beecher, in which 
he says of this gentleman, Mr. Raymond, * He's a safe man to 
conduct affairs. He doesn't understand the facts as you know 
them ; but he represents me in the church.' And yet this is 
the man who pretends to know all and to throw discredit on 
my statements. And think of Ghearman sitting there and 
indorsing the acquittal of an adulterer ! I'll riddle this affair. 
I have documents left. They treated me shamefully last night, 
and when I think of it I am in some degree provoked, but I 
do not lose my temper. They were 1 angered. They lost their 
heads, and (bursting into a laugh in his impetuous way) they 
haven't much heart left." 

" Do you know," said he, pausing in the centre of the room 
and looking thoughtfully at his listener, " that I still retain a 
friendship for Mr. Beecher? I can't help it. I find my 
thoughts in spite of myself still running in the old channels. 
My resentment seems to be against the state of affairs in which 
I found myself. But I shall right this wrong. Yes ; I find 
myself still looking in a kindly way upon Mr. Beecher. It is 
a part of my nature that I am unable to rid my mind of the 
impression which a friend makes upon it. Perhaps it is best. 
I am glad on the whole that I cannot outlive a friendship." 

For a time Mr. Moulton paced the room in deep thought. 
Then he broke out again, his fine frank face lighting up as he 
turned toward his visitor. 

"Do you remember Charlotte Cushman?" said he. "Do 

you remember how she used to say as she contemplated the 

murder of Duncan : 

" ' 'Tis better to be that we would destroy 

Than through destruction dwell in doubtful joy.' " 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 445 

" Plymouth Church will find out the truth of that sentiment 
to its sorrow. The time will come when it will regret its at- 
tempt at my destruction." 

" May I ask you what the nature of your coming statement 
will be?" 

" I would rather not anticipate. Say this about it if you 
think it necessary to characterise it. Say it will be very simple 
and direct in its nature and sustained by documents." 

"When will your next statement be ready?" ' 

" It is ready now," he replied. 

Mr. Moul ton's attention was called to the remark of S. V. 
White to a reporter of the Daily Graphic yesterday that " the 
efforts ot an Irishman chasing a flea were not to be compared 
to the committee's efforts to draw the full statement from Mr. 
Moulton." 

In reply to this Mr. Moulton distinctly stated that he had 
absolutely complied with the request of the committee that he 
should come before them and produce the documents referred 
to by Mr. Tilton in his statement, and that he should say nothing 
further to the committee nor make any statement for publication 
unless compelled to do so if his action toward Mr. Beecher was 
questioned. The committee had ignored his statement and had 
declined to cross-examine him on the ground that he made his 
statement public instead of to the committee. To this he would 
reply that Mr. Beecher made his statement to the committee de- 
nouncing him (Moulton) as a blackmailer and a treacherous 
man, and the committee, without notifying Moulton of Beecher's 
statement, or allowing him to reply to it, published it, and, in 
his (Moulton's) opinion, any statement to the committee would 
have been inadequate, and therefore he gave it as Beecher's 
statement was given — to the world. "If I had had reference 
to public opinion I should have presented my original state- 
ment, and might have saved myself from criticism. No per- 
gonal reason has influenced me in my conduct." 

"Mr. Moulton, I want your version of the affair last night." 

"I wish it understood," said Mr. Moulton, " that I was in no 
sense the cause, either through motive, presence, or action, of 



446 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

the disgraceful performance which occurred in the church last 
night. I went to the church, seated myself in a place tendered 
me by a gentleman of the press, and proceeded quietly to take 
notes of what was being read. During the proceedings, before 
the speech by Mr. Raymond, a young man, I sent my request 
to the Moderator of the meeting, asking permission to say a 
word. It was not considered ; the opportunity for which I 
asked was denied me, although I had the right to speak as a 
member of the congregation, besides the right which every man 
has to defend himself when assailed. When I found myself 
placed in a false light before the congregation by one of the 
speakers, Mr. Raymond, I resented his insult by calling him a 
liar." 

"Would Captain Byrne have arrested you, do you think?" 
"Yes, I think he would if he had had cause. He is a faith- 
ful officer. I did not see him at all in the church during the 
tumult. Neither dreading the hisses nor threats, I quietly pro- 
ceeded with my notes, and the only knowledge I had of his 
presence was through a whisper by a gentleman of the press 
that the captain was behind me. Byrne, with great fidelity to 
his duty, rode upon my carriage-step to my house. I suppose 
he protected me. I say ' suppose/ because I did not realize 
that I was in any danger." 

XXX. 

MR.TILTON SUES MR.BEECHER FOR DAMAGES. 

Mr. Tilton, having resolved to bring suit against Mr. 
Beecher for the seduction of his wife, made his formal com- 
plaint through his counsel, Messrs. Morris & Pearsall, about 
the 20th of August, and brought suit for the sum of one hun- 
dred thousand dollars as the amount of the damage he had sus- 
tained by the injuries which he claims were inflicted upon him 
by Mr. Beecher. Mr. Beecher's reply was brief, and was as 
follows : 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 417 

The City Court of Brooklyn: 

Theodore Tilton, plaintiff, agt. Henry Ward Beecher, defendant — 
Answer. The defendant answers to the complaint: I. That each and 
every allegation in the said complaint contained (except that the plain- 
tiff and Miss Elizabeth M. Richards were married on October 2, 1855, 
and lived together as husband and wife up to 1874) is utterly false. II. 
That this defendant never had, at any time or at any place, any unchaste 
or improper relations with the wife of the plaintiff, and never attempted 
or sought to have any such relations. 

Shearman & Sterling, 

Attorneys for Defendant. 
State of New Hampshire, County of Grafton, ss. : 

Henry Ward Beecher, being duly sworn, says : 1. That he is the de- 
fendant herein, and resides in the city of Brooklyn, Kings county, New 
York, but is temporarily residing at the Twin Mountain House, Coos 
county, New Hampshire. 2. That he is sixty-one years of age, and his 
occupation is that of a clergyman. 3. That the foregoing answer is 
true of his own knowledge. Henry Ward Beecher. 

Sworn and subscribed before me this 29th day of August, 1874. 

Harry Bingham, Justice of the Peace. 
S f ate of New Hampshire, County of Grafton, August 29. 1874: 

I hereby certify that I am Clerk of the Circuit Court of the said 
county, and that Harry Bingham resides therein, and is. and was, at the 
time of taking the foregoing affidavit, a Justice of the Peace throughout 
the said State, and duly authorized by the laws thereof to take the said 
affidavit; and that I am well acquainted with the handwriting of the 
said Harry Bingham, and verily believe that the signature to the jurat 
of the said affidavit is genuine, and that said affidavit purports to be 
taken in all respects as required by the laws of the State of New Hamp- 
shire. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed 
the official seal of the said court, the date above written. 

C. A. Dole, Clerk of the Circuit Court 

For Grafton County, New Hampshire. 
Theodore Tilton ag't Henry Ward Beecher : 

Please to take notice that the issue in the above action will be brought on 
for trial at the next Trial Term of the City Court of Brooklyn, appointed 
to be held at the County Court-house, in the city of Brooklyn, on the 
first Monday of October next, at ten o'clock in the forenoon of that day, 
or as soon thereafter as counsel can be heard. 

September 7, 1874. Shearman & Sterling. 

To Morris & Prarsall. 

Due and timely service of the notice of which the above is a copy is 
hereby admitted. Morris & Pearsall. 

September 7, 1874. 



448 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

A counter notice of trial was at the same time served by Morris & 
Pearsall upon Shearman & Sterling, who also admitted due service 
thereof. 

At the time of the service of Tilton's complaint and the 
filing of his answer thereto, Mr. Beecher was in the White 
Mountains, whither he had gone to escape his annual attack of 
hay fever, to which he is subject. 



XXXI. 

MR. MOULTON'S LAST STATEMENT. 

Mr. Moulton, on the morning after the meeting at Plymouth 
Church, gave notice of his intention to publish another state- 
ment in which he would produce documents which would 
effectually ruin Mr. Beecher, and overthrow the report of the 
Investigating Committee. On the 11th of September, he put 
his purpose into execution by publishing in the New York 
Daily Graphic the following statement: 

To the Public : 

I have waited patiently, perhaps too long, after giving to the public the 
exact facts and documents as they were given to me, in the statement 
prepared for the Committee of Investigation, of which they have made 
no use ; nor did they call upon me for any explanation, or try to test 
the coherence of the facts by cross-examination, which, of course, I held 
myself ready to undergo after I felt myself compelled to make an exposg 
of the facts in full. 

I had hoped that Mr. Beecher himself would, ere this, have made a 
denial of any intimation, insinuation, or averment in his statement that 
I had acted in any way dishonorably towards him, or had endeavored, 
in the interests of Mr. Tilton, to extort or obtain by cajolery or promise 
any money from him ; and as such a withdrawal, in accordance with truth 
as Mr. Beecher knows it, would have rendered it unnecessary for me to 
take any further part in the controversy between the principals in this 
terrible affair, I trusted that I never would have felt myself called upon 
to make further statements which, if made, must be in the nature of ac- 
cusations against him. 

Failing in this hope, it seems to my friends and to myself that as a 
question of veracity is so sharply raised between Mr. Beecher and me 
and as there are a large number of well-meaning and confiding men and 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 449 

women who desire, if possible, to believe him, and, although if the case 
between us were to be determined only by the thinking, scrutinizing 
people of the country, it would not be necessary to add another word; 
yet, to prevent these good, religious persons from being led astray in their 
convictions, not only as regards Mr. Beecher, but that I may maintain 
the station in their minds which I feel I ought to hold as a man of honor 
and purity of motive and action in this disgraceful business, I propose, 
by the aid of documents which I hold, and the necessary narrative to 
make them intelligible, and by a comparison of Mr. Beechers state- 
ments with the documents heretofore published, to show that it is im- 
possible for his statement to the committee to be true in many very 
important particulars, and that the issue of truthfulness is not between 
his personal averments and mine, but between him and the facts them- 
selves. 

From his insinuations and inferences, if not the direct statements, 
feeling that my character as a man as well as my truthfulness as a wit- 
ness have been impugned, I will endeavor, in the first place, to reinstate 
myself so far as I may by showing at how late a day he held other and 
entirely different opinions of me. 

It will be observed that in my statement prepared for the committee 
I said that I refrained from producing any documents or "any papers 
or proposals for the settlement oi this controversy since it has broken 
out afresh, and since the publication of Tilton's letter to Dr. Bacon and 
the call of Beecher for a committee ;"' and the reason was that in making 
the statement before the committee, I thought it unjust to the parties 
to parade before the committee the mutual concessions and arrange- 
ments made by the parties whom I had hoped, even at that late hour, 
might be saved from themselves by an adjustment of the strife. 

I extract the following from Mr. Beecher's statement to the com- 
mittee: 

Until the reply of Mr. Tilton to Bacon's letters. I never had a sus- 
picion of his (Moulton's) good faith and of the sincerity with which he 
was dealing with me; and when that letter was published, and Mr. Moul- 
ton, on my visiting him in reference to it, proposed no counter-operation 
— no documents, no help — I was staggered. 

If this averment were true, he was rightly " staggered," and he rightly 
lost faith in me ; for if I failed, in his then hour of peril, to do everything 
that in me lay to his satisfaction to rescue him, I was not the friend that 
I had professed to be, or that he acknowledged me to be, and was un- 
worthy of his confidence or the confidence of any other. 

It will be observed that the letter of appointment of the Investigating 
Committee, of which Mr. Sage is chairman, bears date Brooklyn, June 
27. 1874, which was drawn out by the publication of the letter from 
Tilton in the Golden Age on the 21st (?) of the same month. 
29 



450 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Mr. Beecher's statement was made before the committee on the 13th 
of August, wherein the accusation that I had deserted him at first ap- 
pears. Now, I aver that from the time of the preparation of the Bacon 
letter, before the 21st of June, down to the 24th day of July, I was in 
almost daily consultation with Beecher and his counsel, at their request, 
as to the best method of meeting that publication and averting the storm 
that was imminent ; and until the 4th of August I enjoyed his entire 
confidence and regard as much as I ever had so far as any expression 
came from him ; and, instead of manifestations of distrust, he gave me, 
both verbally and in writing, the highest praise for my friendly interven- 
tion. I repeat one instance of his oral commendation because I can 
substantiate it by a witness who was present. After we had been in 
consultation at my house, on the 5th of July, upon this subject, I walked 
with him, still continuing the conference, up past Montague Terrace, 
where we found Mr. Jeremiah P. Robinson, my business partner, stand- 
ing at his door. "We stopped and spoke to him on some indifferent sub- 
ject, when Beecher, putting his arm around my neck and his hand upon 
my shoulder, said to Mr. Robinson : " God never raised up a truer friend 
to a man than Frank has been to me." Mr. Robinson replied: "That 
is true," and we passed on. 

On the 24th of July I received a letter from Mr. Beecher, asking me 
to return to him certain letters and papers in order to aid him in mak- 
ing his statement to the committee. As previous to the 10th, when 
Tilton made his sworn statement, I had refused the same request from 
him I did not think it right to grant that of Beecher, because it seemed 
to me to be taking sides in the controversy as between them, which I 
ought not to do; and especially, as he was about to make a statement 
of facts which were within his own knowledge, I did not see why he 
should need documents to aid him if the statement was to be a truthful 
one. I gave a verbal refusal to his counsel, who brought me the letter, 
and desired him to take the latter back to Beecher, which he declined to 
do. On that day I left town on imperative business and was gone until 
the 4th day of August, when I wrote Beecher a letter giving an answer 
to his request in form, stating substantially these reasons, which letter 
he has published, together with a reply, which was the first manifesta- 
tion of unkindness of feeling I received from him. 

It must be borne in mind that the point of veracity whicli is thus 
raised between us is not whether my efforts for the adjustment of this 
controversy were wise or well directed, but whether it is true that I 
made any efforts to aid him, or deserted him, as he asserts. Upon that 
point let the facts answer, which are, fortunately for me. so substantiated 
by documentary evidence that as to them there can be no doubt. This 
is exactly what I did do : 

When I was first informed by Tilton that he was preparing a reply to 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 451 

Dr. Bacon for publication, I said to him that I hoped he would do no 
such thing, as it would lead to an exposure of all the facts. He said, in 
substance, that Dr. Bacon being a leading Congregationalist of New 
England, his statement would seriously damage him there, if not refuted, 
in his character as a public man, and that he must reply or be deemed 
the " dug and knave " that the Doctor had characterized him, and be 
forever held to be simply a " creature of Beecher's magnanimity ; " that 
he had given to Beecher, as I knew myself from being present at the 
time, an opportunity to repair the mischief which Bacon had done him, 
asking Beecher merely to write a letter to Bacon making it clear that 
he (Tilton) was not the creature of Beecher's magnanimity. I said to 
him : " Do you remember that Beecher pleaded the embarrassments of 
his situation, which hindered him from doing such a thing as that with- 
out in reality making a confession?" Tilton replied: ''Beecher hus 
acted in this matter simply with reference to saving himself, and thus 
leaves nothing for me but my own vindication by myself." 

While the Bacon letter was being prepared I did not see it, but after 
it was written I thought it was but just to all the interests for which I 
was caring that I should see its contents, and therefore accepted an invi- 
tation from Tilton to hear it read. I again objected with great vehemence 
and warmth to its publication in the presence of witnesses — one of whom 
was Mr. Frank Carpenter, who, as his friend, had been brought by Til- 
ton into the case without my intervention. After considerable discus- 
sion, finding it impossible to control its publication, I then sought to 
alter* the phraseology of the inculpating portion of it in such a manner 
as would still leave opportunity for such a reply from Beecher as might 
satisfy Tilton and would prevent the disclosure of Mr. Beecher's acts. 
To all my arguments and urgings, Tilton replied that he would not hold 
me responsible at all for the consequences; that he accepted them all 
for himself alone, and that he could not take my advice upon this sub- 
ject, since Beecher and his friends had chosen to disregard my counsel 
by continuing their attacks upon him. After much persuasion I 
induced him to strike out the words in the letter as originally written — 
*■ Mr. Beecher has committed against me and my family a revolting 
crime" — and instead thereof to insert the words: "has committed 
against me an offence which I forbear to name or characterize ; " thus 
omitting the word " family," and substituting a softer word. " offence," 
susceptible of various interpretations, instead of "revolting crime" 
a<rninst the family, which might have been regarded as capable of only 
one. When thus modified even, I told Tilton that I would rather cive 
him, from my own pocket, five thousand dollars in gold than to have 
him publish it. 

During the time of the composition of the paper, while my importu- 
nities with Tilton were going on, I had frequent consultations with 



452 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Beeclier in regard to the letter, in which I told him that I should dc> 
everything- in my power to prevent its publication, which I most 
assuredly did, as more than one person can testify. He understood as 
fully from me as I had from Tilton that he (Tilton) might be goaded in 
self-defence to expose Beeclier for misbehavior toward his family. The 
evening that I caused the change in the phraseology above stated was 
the first time 1 had heard it read, and was a day or two before its publi- 
cation ; and afterwards, on the day that it went to press, and before 1 
knew that it had gone, at the office of the Golden Age, I again urged 
Tilton, with every power of persuasion that I had, not to publish it, and 
suggested certain other changes which would render Beecher's course 
in regard to it less difficult. 

Immediately after the publication I sent for General Tracy, Mr. 
Beecher's counsel, to come to my house in the evening, where I read 
him the letter, and he was much incensed at its contents. I called his 
attention to the change in the phraseology that I had procured from 
Tilton, and tried to show him that this letter, bad as it was, would, if 
properly met, be the means of arriving at a final settlement and peace 
between the parties and safety for the families, for which purpose I had 
made a written analysis of the letter, in order to show how I thought 
the parties might be reconciled. I showed him that it did not charge a 
crime but an offence, for which it quoted an apology, and that Tilton in 
the letter itself stated that a settlement had once been brought about 
between him and Beecher upon the basis of that apology which he 
deemed an honorable one, and which would have been observed but for 
the attacks upon him of Beecher and his friends, and the speech of 
Bacon to the students of Yale, and the articles in the Independent, 
which speech and articles Tilton had already given Beecher an oppor- 
tunity to qualify so far as they related to him (Tilton). 

At first Mr. Tracy did not accept this view of the 1 case, but came to 
me a short time afterwards and said that after thinking over my remarks 
and plans lie " had become converted to my view of the case." The 
question then was as to the best course for Beecher to take in relation 
to the letter; and upon this matter I consulted with Tracy, and he 
agreed with me that we should undertake to settle the controversy upon 
the basis of an " offence." 

A few days after the publication of the letter I met Tilton in company 
with three of his friends, when I again strongly represented the mistake 
which in my judgment he had made, especially towards himself, by the 
publication; and told him that he owed it to himself, his family and his 
friends, and to me in an especial degree, as well as all other interests 
involved, to help me to find a way still to suppress all further publica- 
tion and to bring peace and reconciliation between himself and Beecher. 
He said, in the presence of a witness, that he would say nothing more, 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 453 

and be satisfied if Beecher made no reply to the letter, and that he 
would not, publicly or privately, insist upon a reply; and after discuss- 
ing the policy of silence or a reply by Mr. Beecher I dictated to the 
party then present the following, which I said I would advise that 
Beeciier should say in substance in his lecture-room to his church as a 
reply to the letter, or, if not, that he should be silent, with either of 
which courses Til ton had already expressed himself satisfied. The 
paper is marked " A." 

MOULTOX'S PROPOSED STATEMENT FOR BEECHER. 

This church and community are unquestionably and justly interested 
through the recent publication by Theodore Tilton in answer to Dr. 
Leonard Bacon, of New Haven. 

It is true that I have committed an offence against Theodore Tilton, 
and. giving to that offence the force of his construction. I made an 
apology and reparation such as both lie and I at the time declared full 
and necessary. I am convinced that Mr. Tilton has been goaded to his 
defence by misrepresentations or misunderstanding of my position 
towards him. I shall never be a party to the reopening of this question, 
which has been honorably settled as between Theodore Tilton and my- 
self. I have committed no crime; and if this Society believes that it is 
due to it that I should reopen this already too painful subject or resign, 
I will resiirn. I know, as God gives me the power to judge of myself, 
that I am better fitted to-day through trials and chastening to do good 
than I have ever been. 

This paper I now have, in the handwriting of the gentleman who took 
it down at the time, and who can testify to the accuracy of this state- 
ment. Upon hearing it read Tilton pledged himself to peace and final 
settlement if Beecher would either speak or write the substance of the 
words above quoted or keep silent. 

Within a day or two — I think, the next day — I saw Beecher at my 
own house, and in the presence of a witness had a consultation in refer- 
ence to the Bacon letter, and discussed the best way of meeting that 
letter. We first considered the policy of entire silence; next what was 
best to say in case anything was said ; and, at his request, I gave him a 
copy of the paper above set forth. He said he would like to submit it 
to a few of his friends, saying at the same time: ''I will copy it in my 
own handwriting, and not give it as yours." It was fully agreed there 
that he would make no reply or take any steps in relation to the Bacon 
letter without consulting me. and that he would either keep silence or 
make a statement substantially like that which I had given him, as 
Tilton had told me in the presence of witnesses that he was committed 
to peace if Beecher should take either of those courses. 

I saw Tracy, and asked him if Beecher had submitted to him any 
paper with reference to the Bacon letter. He said that Beecher had 
shown him a memorandum which looked like my handiwork. I asked 



454 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

him what he thought of it. He answered that he approved of it in the 
main, but made objection to the words, " 1 have committed no crime," 
saying that as adultery was no crime at common law there would be an 
opportunity for criticism upon that word as not being a sufficient denial. 
He suggested another doubt as to the propriety of the proposed action, 
because he did not know whether Tilton would keep faith or not. I 
replied that 1 thought he had already made a mistake in assuming 
everything against Tilton, and that if he should treat him with trust 
and confidence he would get trust and confidence in return. " But," I 
said, "Mr. Tracy, the trouble with you and the parties you represent is 
that you expect everything from Tilton, and are willing to do nothing 
yourselves that requires courage and confidence." He said he had had 
a talk a short time previous with Tilton, who had spoken, in his opinion, 
like an insane man because he had replied to his remark that the world 
would never forgive him for having condoned his wife's offence by say- 
ing : " 1 take a higher view than you or the world do upon this question, 
and 1 don't believe that I am to be blamed for having condoned my 
wife's offence, or that it will help the man who has committed the crime 
against my family to plead that 1 have." 1 said to Tracy that I thought 
he was acting more foolishly than Tilton in assuming, from such a re- 
mark as that, Tilton's insanity. I said : " You will get yourself and the 
people you represent into trouble by just such statements, which only 
tend to incense ; they do not tend to peace." Tracy said that he did 
not believe that Tilton ever intended peace. I replied: "There you 
make a mistake again, for I never yet have failed in any emergency, so 
far as I know, to get Tilton to acquiesce in what was fair to save all 
parties, except in the matter of the Bacon letter, and if yon now go 
upon the assumption that he is a reasonable being, and as magnanimous 
as any of the other parties involved, you can have peace, and if yon do 
not the responsibility must be upon yourselves." He spoke in this con- 
versation of Tilton's great ability, and remarked that Tilton impressed 
him more and more strongly as a man actuated by high purposes. 
41 But," said he, " he lacks balance." We parted, agreeing to confer 
further upon this topic. 

On Sunday afternoon. July 5, after church services, I met Mr. Beecher 
walking with his wife in the street. He left her at Mr. Howard's, and 
went with me to my house. T expected, if he said anything, that he 
would have taken the opportunity of Sunday to make the statement to 
his people of his course which I had prepared with reference to the 
Bacon letter, but had learned that he had not so done. After we reached 
my house I said to him, "Well, Mr. Beecher. you did not speak from 
your pulpit the words we talked over. I wish you had, because the 
great sympathy manifested for you in this community would have made 
such words acceptable." " Well," said he, " you know we agreed upon 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 455 

silence, and you are responsible if I have made any mistake in not 
speaking." "Very well," said I. "I adhere still to the policy of silence 
as best; but if you say anything through the pressure that is brought to 
bear upon you, in my judgment what I wrote out is best, as Tilton has 
committed himself to a settlement if that is said ; and if it is said, and 
he demands anything further, so far as I am concerned I shall destroy 
every paper and everything I have bearing upon the subject ; and if he 
wants to open the fight he will have to open it without any aid or con- 
firmation from me." Mrs. Moultou was present, and Mr. Beecher asked 
her opinion of what I had written for him to say, and she told him that 
it was the only hope she had ever seen for a settlement, aside from a 
frank and manly confession on his part of his sin, and asking man's for- 
giveness for it as he expected God's. He said to her that he would con- 
sider it, but that I was responsible for his having kept silence. 

We then went together towards Mr. Howard's house, he going to find 
Mrs. Beecher, whom he had left there to continue his walk, and whiU 
going there we met Mr. Robinson, when the conversation took place 
that I have before related. Perhaps I should have added that the 
reason why he made the remark he did to Mr. Robinson was because I 
had almost at the beginning of the affair told Mr. Robinson of all the 
facts concerning Beecher as I knew them and have now made them 
public, and had received from him valuable advice as to my conduct in 
regard to them, all of which I had communicated before that time to 
Mr. Beecher. 

As we walked on together, in the course of further conversation, 
Beecher for the first time told me that he had acquiesced in the appoint- 
ment of a committee of investigation, at which I expressed considerable 
surprise, and told him I thought it was a mistake, but we would try to 
get along even with that. He said he had had the naming of the com- 
mittee himself, and gave me the names of most of them. I said : " I 
hope Shearman will not have anything to do with this committee." 
He replied: " We have purposely left him out because we do not want 
any element in it that will cause trouble." I said : " If this matter is to 
go before a committee of investigation I think I shall employ General 
Butler as my counsel to advise me in this matter. As you know, he 
was my counsel in another case, and I think well of his efforts in my 
behalf*. 7 ' Beecher appeared pleased at my suggestion. I may as well 
remark here, once for all, that I did not send for General Butler as 
counsel until after Til ton's sworn statement was prepared, and he arrived 
on the day it was delivered to the committee by Tilton, as will appear 
hereafter. As General Butler's name has been connected more or less 
with the progress of this case, I may as well state that from the time 
he came into the case he has labored unceasingly to prevent any dis- 
closure or publication of the facts. He has done everything he possibly 



456 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

could, both in advising- me and acting- with the other parties to the con- 
troversy, to avert the consequences of the exposure which lias been 
made. In every phase that the affair has taken, his counsel to me has 
always been that I should try and have the difficulty reconciled, and 
that I should hold myself entirely impartial between the parties, acting 
as a friend to each ; which advice I have endeavored to follow, and have 
only been driven from that position by circumstances which are too well 
known. I will further say that I never sent for him or counselled with 
him, except at the solicitation of the counsel for Mr. Beecher, until after 
Mr. Beecher's letter of August 4, when he demanded of me his papers 
and letters. 

It seemed to me necessary to have able counsel, as many of the docu- 
ments and papers were of a nature to implicate others, and it became 
important to know how far I might be liable for the use of their 
contents. 

Mrs. Tilton made her first statement before the committee on the 
evening of July 8, without the knowledge of her husband, as both he 
and she say, and because of which she says, " lie asked who the gentle- 
men were; said no more, rose, dressed himself, and bade her good-by 
forever." The next day, July 9, I saw General Tracy, and we consulted 
as to how Tilton should act, and as to what he ought to say with refer- 
ence to the denial of his wife before the committee of adultery on Beech- 
er's part. I made an appointment with Tracy and Tilton to meet at 
my house that evening on this subject. Mr. Tracy told me that Mrs. 
Tilton had made a very fine impression upon the committee. I told 
him that he must convey, with great impressiveness, to Tilton this fact, 
and of the kindness with which she had spo"ken of her husband. I 
warned Tracy that Tilton might be quite severe in his characterization 
of his conduct, because he had allowed Mrs. Tilton's statement to be 
taken by the committee without his (Tilton's) knowledge, and called to 
his mind something that had happened in November, 1872, in regard to 
revelations that Tilton had made to him in confidence as to the Wood- 
hull story, when Mr. Woodruff and myself Avere present, Tilton pre- 
facing them with the statement : '' You are to receive certain confi- 
dences ; but if you do, will you feel yourself at liberty to act as the 
counsel of Beecher if we ever come into collision?" to which you re- 
plied, " Certainly not." I said: " Mr. Tracy, Tilton thinks now your 
being counsel for Beecher is a violation of that promise, and will un- 
doubtedly use severe language in regard to it. But since the inter- 
ests you have at heart and we are now in charge of are so grave, you 
had better endeavor to conciliate him and not return his denunciations 
it' he indulges in them. Appeal as strongly as you can to the great 
love I know he still retains for his wife, and try to rouse the pride which 
he has in her and his family." 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 457 

Mr. Tracy came to the interview, as I had arranged, and met as I 
had expected the denunciations of Mr. Tilton, but received them with 
great forbearance, and then, with strength and pathos of language, with 
tears flowing down his cheeks, he made so eloquent and manly an ap- 
peal to Tilton, picturing with great force his wife's tenderness and gen- 
tleness and apparent truthfulness before the committee, and her high 
eulogy of her husband, that Tilton was greatly moved and pacified 
therewith, and seemed desirous for reconciliation and renewed peace 
for his wife's sake. Tracy said to him also that as the committee, to 
his knowledge, felt that there was an offence committed by Beecher 
against him, they would undoubtedly make any report that he (Tilton) 
could suggest upon the basis of almost, any offence this side of adultery 
— indeed, that he could quite guarantee they would. 

In consequence of the assurances in this conversation, Tilton, who, as 
he informed us, had left his home never intending to go back to it, did 
go back, as he afterwards told me, and there had a reconciliation with 
his wife, which is thus described in the statement of Mrs. Tilton to the 
committee : 

The midnight following, I was awakened by my husband standing by 
my bed. In a very tender, kind voice he said he wished to see me. I 
arose instantly, followed him into his room, and sitting on the bed-side 
he drew me into his lap, said he was proud of me, loved .me ; that 
nothing ever gave him such real peace and satisfaction as to hear me 
well-spoken of; that, meeting a member of the committee, he had 
learned that he had been mistaken as to my motive in seeing the com- 
mittee, and had hastened to assure me that he had been thoroughly 
wretched since his rash treatment of me the night before, etc. 

Then and there we covenanted sacredly our hearts and lives — I most 
utterly renewing my trust in the one human heart I loved. The next 
day how happy we were ! 

When Tilton left my house that night he said that he would go home, 
and,. with Elizabeth, agree upon a report to be made by the committee 
which would be satisfactory to them. This fact is confirmed by Mrs. 
Tilton in her 'statement as follows : 

Theodore wrote a statement to present to the committee when they 
should call upon him, to all of which I heartily acceded. 

Mrs. Tilton evidently did not understand that the report w r as one not 
to be made by the committee but to the committee by Tilton. He re- 
turned the next day with such a report which he had copied out as 
follows, and which is marked B : 

The undersigned, constituting the committee of Plymouth Church, 
to whom were referred certain recent publications of Dr. Leonard Bacon 
and Mr. Theodore Tilton, hereby present their unanimous report. 

The committee sought and obtained a personal interview with each 
of the three following-named persons, to wit : Mr. Tilton. Mrs. Tilton, 
and the pastor, all of whom responded to the searching questions of the 



453 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

committee with freedom and candor. Documents, letters, and papers 
pertaining to the case were carefully considered. A multiplicity of 
details, needing to be duly weighed, occasioned a somewhat protracted 
investigation. The committee hope that the apparent tardiness of their 
report will be compensated to the parties by rectifying an erroneous 
public sentiment under which they have all suffered misrepresentation. 

I. The committee's first interview was with Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton, 
•whose testimony was given with a modesty and touching sincerity that 
deeply moved those who listened to it. Her straightforward narrative 
was an unconscious vindication of her innocence and purity of charac- 
ter, and confirmed by evidences in the documents. She repelled with 
warm feeling the idea that her husband was the author of calumnious 
statements against her or hud ever treated her with other than chival- 
rous consideration and protection. She paid a high tribute to his char- 
acter and also to the fortitude with which he had borne prolonged 
injustice. 

II. The committee further find that Mr. Tilton, in his relations with 
the pastor, had a just cause of offence, and had received a voluntary 
apology. Mr. Tilton declined to characterize the offence for the follow- 
ing reasons : First, because the necessary evidence which should accom- 
pany any statement would include the names of persons who had hap- 
pily escaped thus far the tongue of public gossip ; next, that the apology 
was designed to cover a complicated transaction, its details difficult of 
exact or just statement ; and last, that no possible good could arise 
from satisfying the public curiosity on this point. Mr. Tilton, after con- 
cluding his testimony, respectfully called the attention of the committee 
to the fact that the Clerk of the church had spoken calumniously of 
Mrs. Tilton during the late Council, and hud since unqualifiedly contra- 
dicted and retracted his statements as untrue and unjust, and he (Mr. T.) 
requested the committee to ratify and confirm that apology, making 
honorable record of the same in their report, which is hereby cheer- 
fully done. 

III. The committee further find that the Rev. Henry Ward Bcecher's 
evidence corroborated the statements of Mr. and Mrs. Tilton. He also 
said the church action of which Mr. Tilton had complained had not been 
inspired by the pastor, but had been taken independently by the church ; 
that the popular impression that Mr. Tilton had been in the habit of 
speaking against him was unjust to Mr. T., and was owing mainly to 
the unwelcome introduction into the church of charges against Mr. T. 
by a mere handful of persons, who. in so doing, had received no counte- 
nance from the great mass of the congregation or from the pastor. He 
said that the apology had been invested by the public press with an 
undue mystery ; that after having been led by his own precipitancy and 
folly into* wrong he saw no singularity of behavior in a Christian man 
(particularly a clergyman) acknowledging his offence. He had always 
preached this doctrine to others, and would not shrink from applying 
it to himself. 

The committee, after hearing the three witnesses already referred to, 
felt unanimously that any regrets previously entertained concerning the 
publication of Mr. Tiltoii's letter to Dr. Bacon should give way to 
grateful acknowledgments of the providential opportunity which this 
publication has unexpectedly afforded to draw forth the testimony which 
the committee have thus reported in brief, but in sufficient fulness, as 
they believe, to explain and put at rest forever a vexatious scandal. 
The committee are likewise of opinion, based on the. testimony submitted 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 459 

to them, that no unprejudiced court of inquiry could have reviewed this 
case as thus presented in person by its principal figures without being 
strikingly impressed with the moral integrity and elevation of character 
of the parties ; and accordingly the committee cannot forbear to state 
that the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Mr. Theodore Tilton, and Mrs. 
Tilton (and in an especial manner the latter) must and should receive 
the increased sympathy and respect of Plymouth Church and congre- 
gation. (Signed) 

Meantime Beecher had been engaged in preparing his own statement 
for the committee, and had the night before come down from Peekskill 
for that purpose and also to attend the Friday evening prayer-meeting 
the next day, and I suppose had not learned what had been done. Very 
early Friday morning I received the following note, which I here insert, 
marked " " : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

Friday Morning, July 10, '74. 
My Dkar Frank : — Can you be seen this morning? and, if so, when 
and where ? Any time after ten would suit me best, but any other hour 
I will make do. I came into town last night. 

Yours ever, H. W. Beecher. 

I replied to him in substance — for I have not a copy — having been 
up very late the night before — indeed, I believe I was still in bed when 
I received it — that I was quite tired, and would have to be busy, expect- 
ing to meet Tracy and Tilton again that day before Tilton should go 
before the committee in the evening. In response to my reply I re- 
ceived from Beecher the following reply, marked " D " : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON". 

My Dear Frank :— My papers are all here, and it would be far more 
convenient to have you here if you are not too tired. 

Yours, H. W. Beecher. 

In reply to this I informed Mr. Beecher that I was to meet Tilton at 
my house, that I would be in consultation witli him, and advised him to 
come there and meet him also, as I hoped matters were in process of 
adjustment, and received from him on the same day the following note, 
marked " E " : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

My Dear Frank : — I do not know as it is necessary to trouble yon. 
I only wanted to read you the heads and outline of a statement. When 
I do speak I intend to'be believed. Of course. I shall not publish until 
I have seen you. But time is short, The crisis is at hand. I will not 
go forward long as heretofore. When I say, will not, I mean cannot. 
Events are masters, just now. 

There is no earthly reason for conference with Mr. T. It makes 
nothing better; everything worse. The matter is in a nutshell. No 
light is needed, only choice. Yours gratefullv, H. W. Beecher. 

July 10, '74. 



460 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

I frankly confess that I felt hurt at this note, because I believed that 
I had been acting for the best in his behalf, and that matters were in 
process of adjustment. It seemed to me to be another cry of despair on 
his part, whereas I believed instead that he should have conferred with 
Tilton as his counsel had done. 

During the day of the 10th Tilton's report drafted for the committee 
above quoted was submitted to Mr. Tracy, who said that with a few 
alterations, that were not material, he thought he could have it adopted 
by the committee. 

On the evening of the same day — the 10th of July — in response to the 
invitation of the committee, and in pursuance of the policy that had 
been marked out in our conferences with General Tracy, Tilton appeared 
before the committee and made a brief statement. Neither Tilton nor 
myself knew at that time what were the terms of the commission of the 
committee, or what were to be the extent and purpose of their inquiry, 
but both supposed that its purpose was to endeavor to settle the trouble 
between Beecher and Tilton, and not for the purpose of a full investiga- 
tion of all the facts. This idea I had got from Mr. Beecher in the con- 
versation which I have before related ; and I had therefore supposed, as 
I stated to him, that I thought we could get along with the committee. 

The first statement of Tilton before the committee not having been 
made public, I cannot know its terms, but he reported to me the sub- 
stance of it as I find it made by him in his preface to his sworn state- 
ment of July 20 to the same committee ; and as he was addressing the 
same individuals as to the facts which had taken place before them, I 
assume it to be a true statement. It is as follows : 

I call you to witness that on my first brief examination before your 
committee I begged and implored you not to inquire into the facts of 
this case, but rather to seek to bury them beyond all possible revela- 
tion. 

On the morning of the next day, the 11th, a new and double compli- 
cation arose. It consisted first of the sudden and unexpected announce- 
ment by Mrs. Tilton to her husband at six o'clock a. m. that she meant 
to desert Tier home and family, and in a few moments afterwards she 
carried this intention into effect by going to make her abode with Mr. 
and Mrs. Ovington ; next, by the simultaneous publication, in that 
morning's newspapers, of the letter of appointment of the committee by 
Beecher. dated the 27th of June previous, but which letter had been 
kept back and not sent to the church until Tuesday, July 7. That 
letter called to have "some proper investigation made of the rumors, 
insinuations, or charges made respecting my conduct as compromised 
by the late publication made by Mr. Tilton. .... I desire that 
when you have satisfied yourselves by an impartial and thorough exam- 
ination of all sources of evidence, to communicate to the Examining 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 461 

Committee or to the church such action as may then seem to you right 
and wise." 

On the same day Tilton came to see me, and announcing to me his 
wife's desertion and calling my attention to the above publication, was 
excited by these simultaneous events, which seemed to him to be part 
of a prearranged plan of action, and also excited him to great indigna- 
tion. He said that Beecher was again playing him a trick, as he had 
done before when he attempted to settle the matter, by now appointing 
a committee to make examination of the facts, then getting his w r ife 
surreptitiously to go before the committee and exonerate him fully from 
the charges of adultery, then tempting her openly to desert her hus- 
band, so as to show that he, Tilton, had always been in the wrong, and 
was simply the creature of his magnanimity ; and that now Beecher 
should have a full statement of all the facts and documents if it de- 
stroyed him, his wife, or his family; that justice should be done at 
length and the truth be known ; that if Plymouth Church chose to 
accept an adulterer for its pastor they should have the opportunity to 
do it; and that he was going home to prepare his full statement, and 
wanted me to give him the documents and evidence with which to do it. 
Upon my refusing to do so, he said that I was a traitor to him, because 
I had gone into this controversy in the beginning as his friend. I tried 
to pacify him; said everything I could to quiet him. assuring him that 
although we had been mistaken as to the purpose of the committee, yet, 
as Beecher had named them all, he had done so in his own interest and 
would be surely able to control them. He said that Beecher, by the 
terms of his letter of appointment, had challenged him before the world, 
and lie accepted the challenge. I told him that I saw nothing in the 
letter which prevented him from standing upon the terms of the Bacon 
letter that an offence only had been committed. But he said that this 
was simply folly on my part — indeed, called me a fool for so believing, 
and said : " If you choose to desert me in this emergency of my life, 1 
will stand by myself and fight it alone." I appealed again to him for 
his children's sake, saying : " I cannot be in sympathy with any course 
of yours that will simply blast them and ruin your household and your- 
self." But he was obdurate, and left me, reiterating his determination 
to make a full statement of the facts. Indeed, I had never seen a man 
so much changed as he had been in a few hours. In reference to this 
change in Tilton I quote the following from Mrs. Tilton's statement: 

I rose quietly, and having dressed, roused him only to say, "Theo- 
dore, I will never take another step by your side. The end has indeed 
come ! " He followed me to Mr. Ovington's to breakfast, saying 1 was 
unduly excited, and that he had been misrepresented, perhaps, but leav- 
ing me determined as before. How to account for the change which 
twenty-four hours had been capable of working in his mind than many 
years past, I lfave for the eternities with their mysteries to reveal. 



462 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

The causes of the change had, indeed, been revealed to me in a much 
shorter time. 

I did not call upon Mr. Beecher upon this matter because I believed 
he was in sufficient trouble already, and I was devoting all my energies 
to keeping Tilton within the bounds of reason as to his own course. 

On the same day — the 11th — I received an invitation from the com- 
mittee to appear before them on the 13th, which is as follows, marked 
a y " ; 

SAGE TO MOULTON. 

Brooklyn, July 11, 1874. 
Francis D. Moulton. Esq. : 

Dkar Sir: — The Examining Committee of Plymouth Church (at the 
request of Mr. Beecher) have appointed the following gentlemen, viz. : 
From the church — Henry W. Sage, Augustus Storrs, Henry M. Cleve- 
land ; from the Society — Horace B. Claflin, John Winslow, S. V. White 
— a committee to investigate, in the interest of truth and justice, cer- 
tain charges made by Theodore Tilton in his recent letter to Rev. Leon- 
ard Bacon, which compromise the character of Rev. Henry Ward 
Beecher. The committee are informed that you have some knowledge 
of matters involved in the case, and instruct me respectfully to invite 
you to appear before them on Monday evening next, July 13, at eight 
o'clock, at the residence of Augustus Storrs, Esq., 34 Monroe place, and 
furnish them with such facts as are within your own knowledge in tht 
matters under investigation. Very truly yours, 

H. W. Sage, Chairman. 

It will be observed that the committee only desired that I shou/d 
" furnish them such facts as were within my own knowledge in the 
matter under investigation." The curious phraseology of this require- 
ment would be quite patent to any one, as the committee could hardly 
suppose that I had been called in to be a personal witness of any inti- 
macies, guilty or innocent, between Beecher and Mrs. Tilton, and my 
statement, if so confined, would have been necessarily very short; and 
I might well suppose that the invitation was so worded in order that 
I might make no disclosure. 

On my return to my house on Monday afternoon, at ten minutes to 
six o'clock, I received the following note from Mr. Beecher, marked " G" : 



BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

Monday, 5 p. m. 
My Dear Moulton : — Will it be convenient for you to call around 
here any time this evening after half past six ? I shall be in and can 
be secure from interruption. I need to see you. 

Truly yours, and ever, H. W. Beecher. 

To which I immediately replied in a note as follows, marked " H " : 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 463 

MOULTOX TO BEECHER. 

Monday, 5.50 p. m. 
My Dear Str : — I shall be at home until 7.15 p.m. 1 am almost tired, 
or would go to you. There will be no interruption here. 

Truly yours, Francis D. Moulton. 

Your last note grieved me. I have an invitation to appear before 
your committee tins evening. 

In reply to which 1 received the note heretofore published in my for- 
mer statement, marked " JJJ," which is as follows : 

July 13, 1874. 

My Dear Frank :— I will be with you at seven or a litile before. I 
am ashamed to put a straw more upon you, and have but a single con- 
solation— that the matter cannot distress you long, as it must soon end . 
that is, there will be no more anxiety about the future, whatever regrets 
there may be for the past. Truly yours, and ever, H. W. Beecher. 

In pursuance of this note Mr. Beecher called on me and I read him 
the statement which I was to make to the committee that same even- 
ing, and he approved of its tone and character, and declared it, as I 
therein statei, honorable to both parties so far as I was concerned. I 
had also read the same to Tilton, and he agreed in the same opinion 
as to the propriety of its tone. What 1 did say has already been pub- 
lished, and contains, in the closing part, the advice to the committee 
which I had before given to Beecher, which was as follows : 

T hold now, as I have held hitherto, the opinion that Mr. Beecher 
should frankly state that he had committed an offence against Mr. Tilton, 
for which it was necersary to apologize, and for which he did apologize, 
in the language of the letter, a part of which has been quoted ; that he 
should have stated frankly that he deemed it necessary for Mr. Tilton to 
have mude the defence against Dr. Leonard Bacon which he did make, 
and that he (Beecher) should refuse to be a party to the reopening of 
this painful subject. If he had made this statement he would have 
stated no more than the truth, and it would have saved him and you 
the responsibility of a further inquiry. It is better now that the com- 
mittee should not report, and in the place of a report Mr. Beecher 
himself should make the statement which I have suggested; or that, 
if the committee does report, the report should be a recommendation 
to Mr. Beecher to make such a statement. 

The interview was somewhat hurried, as I left him to go to the com- 
mittee. 

Seeing in some newspaper a supposed inter-view of a committeeman, 
who claimed to speak for Beecher, in which was reported Beecher's 
opinion of what I had said before the committee, I called upon him, 
Beecher, in reference to that and other business, and after the usual 
kindly salutations I told him that I thought his committeemen were 
acting very foolishly in attempting to throw slurs or imputations upon 
me, and recited the facts, as I felt certain that he did not authorize or 
countenance the report. He told me that he had not seen the paper at 



464 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

all and knew nothing about it. "SVe then commenced a discussion of the 
situation, and I spoke of the fact that Tilton was preparing a statement, 
at which he expressed regret and sorrow. I told him Tilton had deemed 
the publication of the correspondence as to" the appointment of the 
committee a challenge to him to come forward and make a full state- 
ment of all the facts ; and that he regarded the act of his wife leaving 
his house a hostile one prompted by the committee under the inspiration 
of Beecher. He said — as had already been published by an interviewer 
— that he had not authorized the publication of the letter of appoint- 
ment at all ; that he had intended to keep things quiet in accordance 
with my suggestion ; but that now he thought he was compelled to 
make a statement, which statement he read to me, and which, while it 
took very much blame upon himself as to his course towards Tilton and 
his family, of course denied all guilt, but which thoroughly exonerated 
Tilton from any dishonorable act towards him. I expressed myself to 
Beecher, as I was, very much pleased with this statement, and said that 
if it was made to the committee before Tilton should make his, as 
Beecher informed me he intended to do, I had no doubt that I could 
prevail upon Tilton to agree to the statement proposed and to allow the 
whole matter to drop; and as evidence of his disposition to do so, I 
showed Beecher a report which Tilton had once consented might be 
made by the committee provided Beecher's statement exonerated him 
(Tilton) from any dishonorable act. This report was in Tilton's hand- 
writing, a copy of which I showed Beecher, and is marked " I " : 

PROPOSED REPORT OF COMMITTEE BY TILTON. 

The committee appointed to inquire into the offence and apology by 
Mr. Beecher alluded to in Mr. Tilton's letter to Dr. Bacon, respectfully 
report that upon examination they find that an offence of grave charac- 
ter was committed by Mr. Beecher against Mr. and Mrs. Theodore 
Tilton, for which he made a suitable apology to both parties, receiving 
in return their forgiveness and good-will. The committee further report 
that this seems to them a most eminently Christian way for the settle- 
ment of differences and reflects honor on all the parties concerned. 

Said Beecher: "Will Tilton agree to that?" I answered: "He 
would have agreed to that, and I hope he will continue in that mind; 
for although he is writing his statement, yet I am dealing with him as 
I have dealt heretofore, allowing him to exhaust himself in writing out 
the statement and then using my influence to suppress the publication, 
and I have no doubt I can do it again." 

The conversation then turned as to what reply Tilton ought to make 
to Beecher's statement, which he had first read to me, if it were accepted 
by the committee. Thereupon Beecher stepped to his desk and wrote 
out the following for me to take to Tilton as the substance of what he 
should say in reply to Beecher's statement, and I was to use my very 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 465 

best exertions and all the influence I could over Tilton to have him 
agree to it. That paper, every word of which was written by Mr. 
Beecher, so that there is no opportunity for mistaking its language, I 
have in my possession. It is marked " J " : 

beecher's proposed statement for tiltox to make. 

The statement of Mr. Beecher being read, and if striking favorably, 
then a word sent, substantially thus, to the committee: 

I have been three years acting under conviction that I had been 
wronged, but was under the imputation of being the injurer. I learn 
from a friend that Mr. B. in his statement to 3-011 has reversed this and 
has done me justice. I am willing, should he consent, to appear before 
you with him, and dropping the further statements, which I felt it to be 
my duty to make for my own clearance, to settle this painful domestic 
difficulty — which never ought to have been made public — finally and 
amicably. 

I left Mr. Beecher with this proposed statement for Tilton in my 
hand, went to Tilton, tried to persuade him not to publish, not to make 
his statement to the committee on the evening of the 20th, at which 
time they had summoned him, but found him exceedingly obdurate, and 
busy in preparing his statement. He again asked me for documents 
and papers, which I refused, and I then left him. 

Several publications were made about this time as to what was to be 
the nature of Tilton's statement, which caused great anxiety to Mr. 
Tracy and myself, who had consultations on this matter. Accordingly, 
on Sunday, the 19th. I received the following note from Mr. Tracy to 
meet me. evidently written in consultation with Beecher, because the 
note paper bears precisely the same water-mark and. is of the same tex- 
ture as that of the notes which I had just previously Teceived.from Mr. 
Beecher from his house. It is here inserted, marked " K " : 

* TRACY TO MOULTOX. 

Brooklyn, July 19, 1874. 
F. I). Moulton : 

My Dear Sir : — Will you name a time and place to-day where I can 
see you ? I think it important. Yours truly, B. F. Tracy. 

We met, and it was there determined between us, upon my sugges- 
tion, that I should make one more attempt to prevent Tilton making his 
statement to the committee. Previous to the reception of this note, at 
Tracy's suggestion, I had summoned my counsel by telegraph to meet 
me in Xew York on Monday, the 20th. At the meeting on Sunday I 
found Tracy impressed with the idea that the documents relating to this 
affair had been destroyed, and that Tilton could not verify by the orig- 
inals any statement from them. I answered him that that was not the 
case ; that all the documents were in my hands with the single excep- 
tion of Mrs, Tilton's confession, which had been returned to Tilton and 
30 



466 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

destroyed, as Beecher knew ; and that I should i'eel myself obliged to 
produce them before any tribunal which would compel testimony. 

On the morning of the 20th, by arrangement with Tracy, I went with 
my counsel to Tilton's house, and there we both strenuously and 
urgently argued with him against the making of his statement to the 
committee that evening. We represented to him that such a statement 
would be ruin to himself, his family, and to Beecher, and that it was not 
for the interest of either or of the community that so great a calamity 
should happen as the exposure of all these facts. Til ton reiterated that 
he had been challenged by Beecher; that he had given his word to the 
committee that he would appear, and that if they were there he would 
do so, and that if he should refuse to appear Beecher's advisers would 
insist that he had no facts and was afraid to appear. It was then sug- 
gested to him that if the committee did not meet that evening and he 
held himself in readiness to appear before them, that would be a suffi- 
cient answer to any such charge, and he was again persistently urged to 
take that course it a meeting of the committee could be prevented. 
Tilton exhibited great reluctance even to that, whereupon I felt obliged 
to tell him that I should consider this course in thus presenting the 
matter against Beecher a personal affront to myself, and that in such 
case I should take all the means in my power to prevent his statement 
being effectual. To this appeal, put to him in the strongest language I 
could command, Tilton finally consented,, first, that if the committee 
were not present, so that he might be excused from appearing before 
them that evening, he would not publish his statement or let its contents 
be known until a future meeting of the committee, when I suggested to 
him the course that had been agreed upon by Beecher and the state- 
ment which had been prepared by Beecher might be submitted to the 
committee and an amicable report made. 

After getting Tilton's consent I drove around to Mr. Tracy's house, 
took him into the carriage, and we drove to my house together, with my 
counsel. When we arrived there we narrated to Mr. Tracy what had 
taken place at Tilton's, and he (Tracy), agreeing that this course was 
best, undertook to get an adjournment of the committee till Wednesday 
evening, and suggested that it might be difficult to find them before the 
meeting, in which case it was understood that he himself would not be 
present on that evening. I undertook to see Tilton and have him agree 
that if Traey should not be present he would refuse to go on until a sub- 
sequent meeting, on the ground that he desired Tracy to be there to 
cross-examine him after he had made his statement. 

Mr. Tracy left my house for that purpose, and soon after returned and 
reported that he had called upon the chairman and left him a formal 
note, saying that he could not be present at the meeting of the commit- 
tee and requested the adjournment ; that he had been to see another 



THE BROOKLYN SCx^NDAL. 467 

member of the committee, Mr. Cleveland, but failed to find him. He 
then left, saying that even if the committee held a meeting he would not 
be present. 

I then saw Tilton, stated the difficulties about getting an adjournment 
of the committee, and asked his acquiescence in the arrangement not to 
deliver his statement to the committee if Tracy was not there. I made 
efforts to detain him at dinner until after eight o'clock in order that the 
committee might adjourn before he came. He left my house after eight 
o'clock, and not soon returning, in about an hour after I sent a messen- 
ger to the committee to learn what was being done, who returned with 
the word, to the unspeakable grief and surprise of myself and my counsel — 
who had co-operated with me in the interest of Mr. Beecher as I had re- 
quested him — that Tilton was reading his statement to the committee ! 
Almost in despair, but with a last lingering hope of preventing the 
public exposure of this unspeakably pernicious scandal, and to make 
one last effort, I went down to the house of the committee and waited 
the coming out of Tilton, and conjured him not to give any copy of his 
statement for publication, hoping that the committee would see, as I 
did, that the necessities of the welfare of the whole community required 
that it should not be made public ; and I got him to consent so to do ; 
and on the next day I was present when he refused the request of a per- 
sonal friend to allow it to be published in the Herald. The manner of 
its publication has been explained in the card of Mr. Maverick, a publi- 
cation made without Mr. Tilton's consent or knowledge, and to the inde- 
scribable grief of both of us. 

After the publication I saw nothing but strife and wretchedness, and 
nothing was left for me to do but to hold myself sternly aloof and allow 
the parties to tight it out without the aid of any documents or knowl- 
edge in my possession. 

On the 24th of July I received a note from Beecher by the hand of 
Tracy, written on the same cross-lined water-marked paper as the note 
of Mr. Beecher of the 19th of July, requesting that I would send him 
the papers and documents in my possession, which note is inserted, 
marked "L" : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

July 24, 1874. 

My Dear Mr. Moulton : — I am making out a statement, and need the 
letters and papers in your hands. Will you send by Tracy all the orig- 
inals of my papers ? Let them be numbered and an inventory taken, 
and I will return them to you as soon as I can see and compare, get 
dates, make extracts or copies, as the case may be. 

Will you also send me Bowen's heads of difficulty and all letters of 
my sister, if any are with you ? 

I heard you were sick. Are you about again ? God grant you to see 
peaceful times. Yours faithfully, H. W. Beecher. 

F. D. Moulton. 



468 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

I said lo Mr. Tracy that he had better take back that note, as I could 
not, in honor and conscience, give up the documents to either party to 
aid them m the preparation of statements against each other. Mr. 
Tracy suggested that perhaps I might send copies, to which I answered 
that that would seem to me the same breach of honorable obligation as 
to send the originals, and that it was impossible for me to have them 
copied, as I was about to leave town. 

On the day of my arrival home, August 4, 1 received an invitation 
from the committee to come before it the next day, asking me only to 
bring the documents referred to in Tilton's statement. Having seen in 
the public prints that it was said that Beecher had received no answer 
from me to his request of July 24, I sent him the letter which has been 
published of the date of August 4, explaining in form what I had said in 
substance through Mr. Tracy. 

At ten minutes to eleven of that evening, a letter was brought to me 
purporting to be signed by H. W. Beecher, but not in his handwriting, 
asking for the production of all the documents before the committee, 
but which afterwards Mr. Sage, chairman of the committee, certified 
to be a correct copy of the original, which is here inserted, marked "M" : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

Brooklyn, July 28, 1874. 
My Dear Friend r — The Committee of Investigation are waiting 
mainly for you before closing their labors. I, too, earnestly wish that 
you would come and clear your mind and memory of everything that 
can bear on my case. I pray you also to bring all letters and papers 
relating to it which will throw any light upon it, and bring to a result 
this protracted case. 

I trust that Mrs. M. has been reinvigorated, and that her need of your 
care will not be so great as to detain you. 

Truly yours, H. W. Beecher. 

F. D. Moulton. 

H. W. Sage, Chairman. 
Correct copy of original. 

The letter of Beecher's of August 4, heretofore published, was the 
first indication that I had ever had from Henry Ward Beecher of un- 
friendliness, and I have the very best reason for knowing that the harsh 
portions of it were the suggestions of others and not of his own mind. 

After receiving these notes of Beecher's, I came to the conclusion 
that if Tilton also consented, I would make the full statement before 
the committee which I have since published. "When I began the pre- 
paration of my statement I did not design to include the letters of Mrs. 
Hooker and her brother, or Mr. Hooker, because, as they had only a 
collateral bearing upon the controversy, I was very unwilling to drag 
the name of Mrs. Hooker, for whom I entertain the highest respect, into 
this matter. But having seen in the newspapers an attack in advance 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 469 

upon Mrs. Hooker's sanity, inspired by the friends of Mr. Beecher, and 
Beecher, through the advice of his counsel, as I believe, having asserted 
that I retained letters of his brother and sister that were not given into 
my keeping as part of the documents in this controversy, I felt it at 
once due to the lady's position and myself that they should appear, and 
hence they were inserted. 

After Tracy had learned by my published letter that I would go before 
the committee and make a full statement, he desired most earnestly that 
I should do no such thing, bringing to bear every argument that oc- 
curred to him to dissuade me therefrom, and among others that if I made 
the statement it would have to come out in the cross-examination that 
I had received money from Beecher for the use of Tilton, and that 
Beecher's friends would thereupon make a charge of blackmail against 
me. I told him in the presence of my counsel — for whom I had again 
sent at his (Tracy's) request — that that would not come out on cross- 
examination, for the facts in regard to the money were already fully dis- 
closed in my statement, and that in that transaction there was nothing 
dishonorable on Beecher's part or my own that I should fear seeing the 
light of day. Tracy strongly assured me that I ought not, under any 
circumstances, to disclose the letters and documents in my possession ; 
that I was bound, by every principle of honor and sacred obligation, to 
keep them private ; and that it would be better, both for Tilton and 
Beecher, that I should do so. 

At his suggestion I called a meeting on Monday morning of some of 
Mr. Beecher's friends, and some of my most valued friends who could 
be got together, to lay before them this proposition. At that meeting 
my counsel advised that there were two honorable courses before me. 
One was to seal my lips as to personal statements, and produce no docu- 
ments but those of which extracts had been made and already been put 
before the committee, as it would be but just to both parties that, a part 
of a paper being seen, the whole should be known; or to make a full and 
complete statement of all the facts and documents, both parties having 
consented. These alternatives were discussed in the meeting of my 
friends, and by a majority of them it was determined that less harm 
would come to the community, to the families of the parties, and to the 
parties themselves if I took the former course. Yielding to the advice 
of those I so much respected, I concluded to go before the committee 
and make the simple statement of an intention not to take part in the 
controversy, and producing only the letters which had in part been 
before them in Tilton's statement, reserving the right to protect my own 
honor and purity of action in this matter if attacked, as I have since 
done. 

In order that the exact credit due to Mr. Beecher's statement may be 
seen and its value as testimony may be fully appreciated as compared 



470 THE TKUE HISTORY OF 

with the facts and documents that I shall hereafter bring forward in my 
own vindication, I am compelled to notice some other patent misstate- 
ments in this special plea of counsel made in behalf of Mr. Beecher, if 
not by himself; and one of the first in order which claims attention is 
the averment in his statement that " the only copy of Mrs. Tilton's con- 
fession was torn in pieces in his own presence " on the night of the 30th 
of December, 1870, an act about which he could hardly be mistaken. 
On the contrary, I have stated that that paper of " confession" was de- 
livered into my hands the night of the meeting of Beecher and Tilton at 
my house, when Beecher was first charged with his adulteries with Mrs. 
Tilton ; and afterwards, when I demanded the recantation of him, he 
asked me : " What will you do with it if I give it up ?" I answered : " I 
will keep it as I keep the confession. If you act honorably I will pro- 
tect it with my life, as I would protect the other with my life." I may 
be allowed to say here that at this remark I made reference to the pistol 
in my overcoat pocket, which I always carried in the night, as emphasiz- 
ing the extremity of my defence of the papers. Yet Mr. Beecher says, 
" He made no verbal threats, but opened his overcoat and with some 
emphatic remark he showed a pistol." Why misrepresent ? Is it pos- 
sible that he gave his confidence at once to a man who extorted a paper 
from him with a pistol ? Yet Beecher's committee make a point of this 
prevarication in their argument for the accused ! 

After the tripartite covenant I handed back that same paper to Tilton 
at the request of his wife, in order that she might be satisfied, and her- 
self destroy it. 

Now, which of these statements is true ? Let contemporaneous facts 
and acts answer. 

It will be remembered that that meeting was on Friday night, the 30th 
of December, 1870. Mrs. Tilton sent me a note, heretofore published, 
dated the next Saturday morning, in the following words : 

Saturday Morning. 

My Dear Friend Frank : — I want you to do me the greatest possible 
favor. My letter which you have, and the one which I gave Mr. Beecher 
at his dictation last evening, ought both to be destroyed. Please bring 
both to me, and I will burn them. Show this note to Theodore and Mr. 
Beecher. They will see the propriety of this request. 

Yours truly, E. R. Tilton. 

The "letter" referred to, of course, it will be seen is the " confession," 
the only letter I then had of hers referring to this matter. 

And again, to show that I cannot be either mistaken or untrue, I 
refer to Mrs. Tilton's note to Beecher of April 21, following, heretofore 
published : 

Friday, April 21, 1871. 

Mr. Beecher : — As Mr. Moulton has returned, will you use your in- 
fluence to have the papers in his possession destroyed ? My heart bleeds 
night and day at the injustice of their existence. 



THE BBOOKLYN SCANDAL. 471 

Would not Tilton have caused such a paper to be preserved after he 
had founded an accusation upon it ? This falsehood was put in by 
Beecher's lawyers lest Tilton might produce a copy, as ray statement 
had not then been published with its documentary evidence. 

Still another variation from the truth occurs in Beecher's statement 
in regard to the destruction of the " letter of contrition." In his ex- 
planation of it he speaks as follows : 

I did not trouble myself about it till more [sic] than a year after- 
ward, when Tilton began to write up his case [of which hereafter] and 
was looking- up documents. I wondered what was in this old memoran- 
dum, and desired to see it for greater certainty ; so one day I suddenly 
asked Moulton for that memorandum, and said, "You promised to 
return it to me." He seemed confused for a moment, and said, " Did 
1?" " Certainly." I answered. He replied that the paper had been 
destroyed. On "my putting the question again, he said, ••That paper 
was burned up long ago ; " and during the next two years, in various 
conversations of his own accord, he spoke of it as destroyed. I had never 
asked for nor authorized the destruction of this paper. 

Upon this point I have said in my statement that I retained that 
" letter of contrition " as one of the papers necessary to keep peace 
between the parties, and I now add that this was well known to Beecher, 
and I shall prove it at last from his own mouth. It will be remembered, 
so far from Beecher believing, within more than a year afterwards, that 
it had been destroyed and burned up, that in April, 1872, Mr. Samuel 
Wilkeson, Beecher's friend and partner in the publication of his book — 
and who thinks that Beecher's destruction will knock their enterprise 
of the publication of the "Life of Christ" "'higher than a kite," and 
who acted in the capacity of counsel in his behalf in drawing up the 
tripartite covenant — wrote me the following letter, heretofore published 
in my statement, dated the same day with that remarkable covenant : 

Northern Pacific Railroad Company, 

Secretary's Office, 120 Broadway. 

New York, April 2. 1872. 

My Dear Moulton: — Now for the closing act of justice and duty. 

Let Theodore pass into your hand the written apology which he holds 

for the improper advances, and do you pass it into the flames of the 

friendly fire in your room of reconciliation. Then let Theodore talk to 

Oliver Johnson. I hear that he and Carpenter, the artist, have made 

this whole affair the subject of conversation in the clubs. 

Sincerely yours, Samuel Wilkeson. 

Did Beecher or his friend want me to burn a " letter of contrition " 
in April, 1872, which Beecher avers I had told him and he believed 
had been burned long previous ? But again in Beecher's letter of June 
1, 1873, he says : "The agreement [tripartite covenant] ivas made after 
my letter through you was written. He [Tilton] had had it a year." 
Yes, from January 1, 1871, to April 2, 1872. Does Beecher really 



472 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

believe himself when he says that I told him that letter was long before 
burned up ? He had not seen his letter of June 1 when this falsehood 
was told for him. In view of such false statements, is the anxiety of 
his counsel to get his letters and papers out of my hands, so they could 
square their statements by them, at all wonderful ? 

As bearing upon the want of veracity in the matter that we have 
just considered as to the destruction of the "letter of contrition," I 
take leave to call attention to a like misstatement as to the original 
preparation of this same "letter." 

I have stated that it was written out according to the dictation of Mr. 
Beecher. As an honorable man, looking only to a settlement between 
the parties, and at that moment certainly without any other possible 
motive which could be imputed to me, I could have only desired to re- 
produce exactly the words of Beecher, which I did do with exactness; 
and the most cursory examination of the phrases will show them to 
have been his words and not mine. I am not in the habit of using such 
language; indeed I hardly believe myself capable of composing it. I 
should not myself have used the phrase, " Humble myself before him as 
I do before my God." I was not used to that kind of expression, nor 
the phrase, •' Toward the poor child lying there praying with folded 
hands." I never called a woman of nearly forty years old a "poor 
child " in my life. I did not know that she " was lying" anywhere with 
folded hands. Beecher did, because he says in his statement to the 
committee that she "lay there white as marble," like a statue of the old 
world, palm to palm, like one praying, thus reproducing four years after- 
wards almost the identical phrase and picture which he conveyed to me, 
and which I put in the "letter of contrition." I could not have used 
the phrase. "I have her forgiveness," because I did not know whether 
lie had it or not except as he told me. and if I had acted upon my 
belief in the matter I should suppose that he had not. This letter, after 
being prepared by me, was read by him before he put his signature 
to it, 

The explanation put by Beecher in his statement — that " this paper 
was a mere memorandum of points to be used by him [me] in setting 
forth my [his] feelings. . . . But they were put into sentences by 
him [me] expressed as he [I] understood them, not as my [his] words, 
but as hints of my [his] figures and letters, to be used by him in con- 
versing with Tilton. . . . It is a mere string of hints, hastily made 
by an unpractised writer, as helps to his memory in representing to Mr. 
Tilton howl felt towards his family" — all this explanation is a mere 
afterthought made up for the purpose of explanation merely. Beecher 
always treated this letter as his own in all the after conversations we 
had upon the subject. 

Mr. Samuel Wilkeson, Mr. Beecher's friend and acting 1 counsel, could 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 473 

have known nothing of that paper except from Beecher, as I had never 
told him or anybody else save Tilton anything of its contents, and both 
Beecher and Wilkeson supposed it was delivered by me to Tilton, as it 
was intended to be. And in his letter heretofore published, speaking in 
the interest of Beecher, Wilkeson calls it " the written apology which 
he holds for the improper advances." In Beecher's letter of June 1, 
1873, just before quoted, he speaks of it as "my letter that he (Tilton) 
had over a year ; " not •' a memorandum for the purposes of conversa- 
tion," written by an unpractised writer, which did not represent his 
thought. 

I have said this was an afterthought. The reason for so believing, 
outside the intrinsic evidence from the documents, is that when this 
controversy was about being renewed because of the publication and 
speeches of Dr. Leonard Bacon which brought it on again, I was in con- 
sultation with Beecher upon what might be the effect of them, and pre- 
dicting that if Bacon w r ent on he would surely reopen the whole matter. 
In that conversation Beecher said to me — and I remember his words 
exactly, because it was quite a startling proposition — il Can't we hit upon 
some plan to break the force of my letter to Tilton ? Can't we hit upon 
some form of note from you to me in which you shall state that that 
letter was not in fact a letter at all, but simply a memorandum of points 
of my conversation made by you for the purpose of expressing more 
accurately my thought and feeling toward Tilton and his family ? " I 
said, " I will think of that, but we must wait, I think, until the necessity 
arises before determining what I ought to do in that regard." He said, 
"I will prepare such a note, and you read it over carefully and see 
whether or not it is possible for you to sign it." I said, " Very well, 
prepare the note and I will consider it, but as you put the proposition 
now, of course, it wouldn't be true." He never showed me such a note 
if he prepared it. 

Another instance to show how this lawyer's statement of Beecher 
cannot be trusted. I find stated in these words : " I never resumed my 
intimacy with the family ; but once or twice I went there soon after my 
reconciliation with Mr. Tilton, and at his request." 

Is this averment true ? I confess that I believed it substantially true 
at the time I prepared my published statement, supposing that Beecher 
was acting according to his distinct instruction to Mrs. Tilton in his letter 
of February 7, 1871, and in accordance with his promise to me to have 
no further communication with Mrs. Tilton except through myself. I 
extract as follows, the whole letter having been published : 

In him TMoulton] we have a common ground. You and I may meet 
in him. The past is ended. But is there no future — no wiser, higher, 
holier future ? May not this friend stand as a priest in the new sanctu- 
ary of reconciliation and mediate and bless you, Theodore, and my most 



474 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

unhappy self? Do not let my earnestness fail of its end. You believe 
in my judgment. 1 have put myself wholly and gladly in Moulton's 
hands, and there I must meet you. 

This is sent with Theodore's consent, but he has not read it. Will 
you return it to me by his hands ? I am very earnest in this wish for all 
our sakes. as such a letter ought not to be subjected to even a chance 
of miscarriage. Your unhappy friend, H. W. Bkecher. 

Could Beecher have written that sentence of me if, as his committee 
reports, forty days before I had extorted a paper from him with threats 
by a pistol, for which they say I ought to have been handed over to 
the police? 

And therefore I put forth in my statement what, when I prepared it, 
I believed to be true. I said : 

On the same day there was conveyed to me from Beecher a request 
to Tilton that Beecher might write to Mrs. Tilton, because all parties 
had then come to the conclusion that there should be no communica- 
tion between Beecher and Mrs. Tilton or Beecher and Tilton except 
with my knowledge and consent, and I had exacted a promise from 
Beecher that he would not communicate with Mrs. Tilton or allow 
her to communicate with him unless I saw the communication, which 
promise, I believe, was, on his part, faithfully kept, but, as I soon found, 
was not on the part of Mrs. Tilton. Permission was given to Beecher 
to write to Mrs. Tilton, and the following is his letter : 

— which is the letter of February 7, 1871, from which the above extract 
is made. I had no intimation that he received any correspondence 
from Mrs. Tilton that did not go through my hands, and certainly that 
lie made none to her, or visited her. But since the preparation of that 
statement there have come into my hands certain letters from him to 
Mrs. Tilton that now show me that he was unfaithful to his promise to 
me, and that he kept up his intercourse clandestinely with her, in viola- 
tion of his solemn promises, his plighted faith to the wronged husband, 
to his own eminent and deadly peril, without the knowledge of his 
(Beecher's) wife — for doing all which things there could have been but 
one incentive. It becomes necessary, therefore, on the question of verac- 
ity of his statement as to the renewal of his intimacy with Mrs. Tilton, 
that some of these letters should be compared. 

In her letter dated January 13, 1871, written to a female friend — 
which certainly will not be claimed to have been dictated by Tilton — 
Mrs. Tilton says : 

My faith and hope are very bright, now that I am off the sick-bed, 
and dear Frank Moulton is a friend indeed. (He is managing the case 
with Mr. Bowen.) We have weathered the storm, and I believe without 
harm to our best .... These slanders have been sown broadcast. I 
am quoted everywhere as the author of them. Coming in this way and 
form to Mr. Bowen, they caused his [Tilton's] immediate dismission 
from both the Independent and the Union. Suffering thus, both of us, 
so unjustly — (I knew nothing of these plans) — anxiety night and day 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 475 

brought on my miscarriage : a disappointment I have never before 
known — a love-babe it promised, you know. I have had sorrow almost 
beyond human capacity, dear . It is my mother 1 

I do not quote the whole letter, as it has been already published, and 
may be referred to. The peculiarity of the language of this extract 
should be noted. We find Mrs. Tilton on the 30th of December sick in 
bed with what she states to have been a miscarriage a few days before 
of what promised to be a " love-babe, you know" — a very curious expres- 
sion from a woman nearly forty years old and the mother of six children, 
to describe a child begotten in lawful wedlock ; specially when, as Mrs. 
Tilton now asserts, she and her husband had been fiercely quarrelling 
for many months, and, Bessie Turner testifies, even to blows. Within 
six weeks of her getting off her sick-bed, arising from that confinement, 
where Beecher says she lay white as marble, with eyes closed as in a 
trance, with her hands on her bosom palm to palm, like one in prayer, 
she writes the following invitation to Beecher, which 1 received from his 
hand : 

Wednesday. 
My Dear Friend: — Does your heart bound toward all as it used? 
So does mine ! 1 am myself again [sic]. I did not dare to tell you till I 
was sure ; but the bird has sung in my heart these four weeks, and he 
has covenanted with me never again to leave. "Spring has come." 
Because I thought it would gladden you to know this, and not to trouble 
or embarrass you in any way, I now write. Of course I should like to 
share with you my joy, but can wait for the beyond ! When dear 
Frank says I may once again go to old Plymouth I will thank the dear 
Father. 

There can be but one meaning in these phrases under such circum- 
stances. "I am myself again. I did not dare to tell you till I vms sure, 
but the bird has sung in my heart these four weeks, and he has cove- 
nanted with me never again to leave. ' Spring has come,' " &c. " Of 
course, I should like to share with you my joy." 

I assume it will not be claimed that Tilton extorted from his wife this 
letter. Was this so significant hint to come " when she was all right," 
answered ? The reply to that question will be found in two notes to 
Elizabeth from Beecher, the shorter one enclosed within the other. The 
first is as follows, marked " N " : 

BEECHER TO MRS. TILTON. 

The blessing of God rest upon you ! Every spark of light and warmth 
in your own house will be a star and a sun in my dwelling. Your note 
broke like spring [sic] upon winter, and gave me an inward rebound to- 
ward life. No one can ever know — none but God — through what a 
dreary wilderness I have wandered ! There was Mt. Sinai, there was 
the barren sand, there was the alternation of hope and despair that 
marked the pilgrimage of old. If only it might lead to the Promised 
Land ! — or, like Moses, shall I die on the border. Your hope and courage 



476 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

are like medicine. Should God inspire you to restore and rebuild at 
home, and while doing- it to cheer and sustain outside of it another who 
sorely needs help in heart and spirit, it will prove a life so noble as few 
are able to live ! and, in another world, the emancipated soul mav utter 
thanks ! ' 

If it would be of comfort to you. now and then, to send me a letter of 
true inwardness [sic]— the outcome of your inner life— it would be safe, 
for I am now at home here with my sister; and it is permitted to you 
[sic] and will be an exceeding refreshment to me, for your heart experi- 
ences are often like bread from heaven to the hungry. God has enriched 
your moral nature. May not others partake ? 

This is in Beecher's handwriting, but without direction or signature, 
but the note enclosed in pencil tells us the direction of it, as the words, 
" Your note broke like spring upon winter," tells also to what note it 
was in reply to, because that quotes the words of Mrs. Tilton's, " Spring 
has come," asking him to "share her joy," she being "all right" now. 
The enclosure is on a slip of paper, marked (but which I do not pro- 
duce here, reserving it for presentation before another tribunal). 

Was there ever a plainer case of renewal of intimacy, to say the least, 
than this ? Mark, also, amid the prayers to God contained in the longer 
note Beecher's suggestion that Elizabeth can write him now " with 
safety.' 1 because he is living alone with his sister — i. e.. his wife is away I 

If this stood alone it would be all-sufficient to prove that he speaks 
falsely who says that Beecher never visited Mrs. Tilton except at her 
husband's request after- the settlement, and fill my purpose, but I do not 
choose to leave it in its solitude as a single act, and therefore I repro- 
duce from my statement the letter from Mrs. Tilton to Beecher which 
bears date May 3, 1871 : 

Mr. Beecher: — My future, either for life or death, would be happier 
could I but feel that you forgave me while you forget me. In all the 
sad complications of the past year my endeavor was to entirely keep 
from you all suffering ; to bear myself alone, leaving you forever ignorant 
of it. My weapons were love, a large untiring generosity, and nest- 
hiding ! That I failed utterly we both know. But now I ask forgive- 
ness. 

Perhaps Tilton extorted this letter, too, from his wife. 

The italics are those of the writer. Will Beecher, in his first sermon 
after his vacation, please explain what sort of a spiritual "weapon" 
" nest-hiding " is, with which " a poor dear child " of a woman " " keeps 
all suffering from her pastor " so as to leave him " forever ignorant of 
it," unless, indeed, " nest-hiding " is a carnal weapon, for in that case no 
explanation is needed. There are indications in this note that perhaps 
Beecher did not keep his appointment, and may have been the reason 
for its writing. 

Whether this note was answered I do not now produce documentary 
evidence to show, nor is it necessary upon the question whether 



THE BKOOKLYN SCANDAL. 477 

Beecher renewed his intimacy with her after the settlement, because I 
produce another note of January 20, 1872, undirected, but enclosed in 
an envelope addressed " Mrs. Elizabeth Tilton, Livingston street, Brook- 
lyn," bearing the post-mark of the same date. It is marked " P " : 

BEECHEK TO MRS. TILTON. 

20 January, 1872. 

Now may the God of Peace that brought again from the dead our 
Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the 
everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his 
will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight through 
Jesus Christ. 

This is my prayer day and night. This world ceases to hold me as it 
did. I live in the thought and hope of the coming immortality, and 
seem to myself most of the time to be standing on the edge of the 
other life, wondering whether I may not at any hour hear the call, 
" Come up hither." 

I shall be in New Haven next week to begin my course of lectures to 
the theological classes, or preaching. My wife takes boat for Havana 
and Florida on Thursday. 

I called on Monday, but you were out. 

I hope you are growing stronger and happier. May the dear Lord 
and Saviour abide with you. Very truly yours, 

H. W. Beecher. 

I again call attention to the mixture of prayer and business in this 
note by the following words : " My wife takes boat for Havana and 
Florida on Thursday. I called on Monday, but found you were out." 

But this is not the only note which establishes renewed intimacy. I 
produce another note, undirected and unsigned, but enclosed in an 
envelope postmarked the same day, directed " Elizabeth Tilton, care of 
Theodore Tilton, Esq., Brooklyn." This is the only one addressed to 
his care, and its contents are such that a husband might read as coming 
from a pastor to his parishioner, except that the husband was using the 
intimacy of the pastor with his wife for the purpose of blackmailing him. 
But why leave it unsigned ? It is here inserted, marked " Q " : 

BEECHER TO MRS. TILTON. 

May 6, 1872. 

My Dear Friend : — I was glad to see you at church yesterday. It 
is always a great comfort to me when you are, and a token of God's 
favor. 

I go to-night to Norwich, N. Y., where my granddaughter, six years 
old, is dying, and her mother, my Hat-tie, awaiting her own confinement. 
I seem to live amidst funerals. The air is heavy much of the time with 
the odor of the grave. 

I am again at work on the " Life," making haste while the day lasts — 
" the night cometh when no man can work." 

I pray for you, that God would dwell in you by that spirit of divine 
love by which we are cleansed from anger, impatience, and all self-asser- 



478 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

tion, and kept in the sweetness of that peace which passes all under- 
standing. That it may please God to lift you up out of all trouble, and 
to keep you under the shadow of his wings, is my prayer for you. By 
his spirit animosity may be utterly slain, and your better self may be 
clothed with the invincible spirit of a love which, springing from God 
and abiding in him. will carry with it his victory. 

And these letters, written too by a Christian minister to a woman 
whom he now characterizes in his statement thus : " I am in that kind 
of divided consciousness that I was in respect to Elizabeth, that she 
was a saint and chief of sinners." He knew all of her then he does 
now, unless indeed he does know more now, and yet he wants " refresh- 
ment" from her "true inwardness." 

I need not prolong this statement by the production of documents to 
show that the intimacy between Beecher and Mrs. Tilton did not cease 
after January 1, 1871, when he had solemnly settled the past injury with 
the husband and promised me that it should cease, and when he now 
states it did cease, for all these letters are subsequent to his settlement 
with Tilton, and some of them more than a year after. 

I call attention to the fact that I have drawn no inferences as to the 
effect of these letters. I have only compared them, shown the relations 
of their several parts to their surroundings, except that I do insist that 
they show a renewal of intimacy with his family not under the super- 
vision of either Tilton or myself, which is the point at issue between 
Beecher and me in this regard. I have avoided stating in terms the 
effect upon my mind because in my former statement, having given only 
the results of conversations I have been criticised ; and disbelief of the 
facts I stated has been attempted because I did not state the precise 
words and manner of the admissions of the fact of sexual intercourse 
with Mrs. Tilton by Beecher. It has been said that, being a "man of 
the world," I drew inferences from his pure and unguarded expressions 
which they did not authorize, and therefore as to these letters I have 
left the inferences to be drawn by those who read them in the light 
which dates and facts now throw upon them. 

But to answer this criticism in another direction, and to show the 
impossibility that I could be mistaken, not seeking to shelter myself 
under any supposed misunderstanding, but taking all the burden of 
veracity between Beecher, Tilton and myself, I now proceed to give 
such portions as are necessary of some few of the conversations in which 
Beecher made confession of adultery : 

I have before stated that the first confession was made on the night I 
went for the " retraction " of Mrs. Tilton ; that I there told him, ' Mr. 
Beecher, you have had criminal intercourse with Mrs. Tilton, and you 
have done great injury to Tilton otherwise ; " and I say further in my 
published statement, " that he confessed and denied not, but confessed." 
As he did not deny this charge so explicitly made by me, whatever 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 479 

inferences I may have made from his words at other times, he certainly 
could not have mistaken mine at this time. When speaking of the rela- 
tions of a man and a woman, " criminal intercourse" has but one ''legal 
or literary meaning," even to a clergyman. 

It, however, seems necessary that I should go still further, which I do, 
and I say that on that evening he confessed to me his relations with 
Mrs. Tilton in language so vivid that I could not possibly forget or mis- 
take it. He said, " My acts of intercourse with that woman were as 
natural and sincere an expression of my love for her as the words of 
endearment which I addressed to her. There seemed to be nothing in 
what we did together that I could not justify to myself on the ground 
of our love for each other, and I think God will not blame me for my 
acts with her. I know that at present it would be utterly impossible 
for me to justify myself before man." This is impressed upon my mind 
because it was the first enunciation of a justification of the doctrines of 
free-love that I had ever heard. 

Not only on the occasion of handing back Mrs. Tilton's " retraction," 
and when giving me the .letter of contrition of January 1. 1871, did 
he particularize with regard to the feelings that influenced him to do as 
he did with Mrs. Tilton, but in many of the conversations I held with 
him he strongly adverted to the absorbing love which he felt for the 
woman, and to the joys of his intercourse with her. which he always 
justified because of that love. Indeed, on one occasion, when speaking 
of it, he said so pure did the intercourse seem to him that the little red 
lounge on which they had been together seemed to him " almost a sacred 
thing." 

If my testimony is to avail anything in this matter, I here commit it 
now fully to the statement heretofore made by me, which I then soft- 
ened by omitting details, the language of which I thought it best for 
public morality should be suppressed. And I call attention to the fact 
made in my previous statement that, in the presence of myself and an- 
other witness, whom I still feel reluctant to bring forward — of course 
not Mr. Tilton — both Mrs. Tilton and Mr. Beecher admitted in language 
not to be mistaken that a continued sexual intimacy had existed be- 
tween them, and asked advice as to the course to be taken because of it. 

I trust I shall be pardoned for giving an instance or two out of the 
many that I might cite of the inconsistency of Mr. Beecher with him- 
self. The theory of his statement is that Mrs. Tilton had confessed to 
her husband in the first place only his (Beecher's) "excessive love for 
her," and he maintains stoutly that in that confession there was nothing 
more confessed than that he had made " improper advances " to her. 
But. again he says the document was one " incriminating " him. Lastly, 
he gives an account of his interview with Mrs. Tilton when he got the 
retraction. This he describes in the following words : 



480 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

I added that he (Tilton) said that I had made improper suggestions 
to her, and that she admitted this fact to him last July. I said : " Eliz- 
abeth, have you made such statements to him ? " She made no answer. 
I repeated the question. Tears ran down her cheeks, and she very 
slightly bowed her head in acquiescence. I said: "You cannot mean 
that you have stated all that he has charged?" She opened her eyes, 
and began in a slow and feeble way to explain how sick she had been, 
how wearied out with importunity ; that he had confessed his own alien 
loves, and said that he could not bear to think that she was better than 
he ; that she might win him to reformation if she would confess that she 
had loved me more than him, and that they would repent and go on 
with future concord. 

The point between us is this : I averred in my statement that the doc- 
ument which Beecher saw as well as myself, was her confession that he 
had committed adultery with the wife. "Which was it? A confession 
only of excessive love and improper advances on his part, or, as he de- 
scribes it, an " incriminating " confession. Without stopping to advert 
to the fact that Mrs. Tilton in her confession which went to Dr. Storrs, 
says that he asked her to be a wife to him, with all that that implies, 
and the singular fact appears that she does not therein say she said no 
to him. need I advert upon the likelihood of her making a negative with 
her great love for him if he took the initiative? Let us now judge Mr. 
Beecher by his own statement. He went to Mrs. Tilton and asked her 
if she had confessed all that her husband had charged, which he said 
were " improper advances/' She bowed her head in acquiescence. He 
said: "How could you do that?" She now gives the reason and says 
Tilton had confessed his own alien loves, and said that he could not bear 
to think that she was better than he, and that " she might win him if 
she confessed she loved me more than him, and that they would repent 
and go on in future concord." 

Assuming this report of the conversation to be true, and the reason 
given by Mrs. Tilton for her confession. I am led to ask how would it 
tend to show 7 that the husband, who had confessed his adultery to his 
wife, had a wife as bad as he was because she confessed to him that she 
had been tempted by her pastor and friend, and had refused his solicita- 
tions, under circumstances of the greatest possible temptation? It can 
only be reconciled upon the theory that Tilton's confession of " alien 
loves" also included a declaration that he had not sinned in act with 
them. This supposition, however, both Beecher and Elizabeth reject 
with scorn. Botli declare the same equivocal words as hers as to Tilton 
mean adultery only. May not, then, her "love" with Beecher, so "ex- 
cessive," mean the same thing? If that theory as to themselves is true, 
would not such a confession to Tilton by his wife, instead of convincing 
him that she was as bad as he was as an adulterer, tend to show to him 
that she was the best of all women, and withstood temptation better than 
her grandmother Eve ? "Why confess her own entire worthiness in order 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 481 

to convince her husband of her unworthiness ? On the contrary, does 
not this language plainly show that her confession was precisely what I 
have declared it was in the written confession, and what it was in fact ? 

Let me give a single other instance. When called upon in. his cross- 
examination to explain his phrases in the letter of June 3, 1872 : — " I 
have determined to make no more resistance. Theodore's temperament 
is such that the future, even if temporarily earned, would be absolutely 
worthless, filled with abrupt changes and rendering me liable at any 
hour or day to be obliged to stultify all the devices by which we saved 
ourselves " — he says : 

Devices did not refer to me, but to him [Moulton] — his whole style 
of acting. 

Q. Theodore said he was born for war, and Moulton probably born 
for diplomacy ? A. Yes. 

By Mr. Ci.kvei.and — Were the plan and method by which from time to 
time these things were managed by your suggestions or by Mr. Moulton ? 
A. I made suggestions from time to time, generally without any effect, 
and the essential course of affairs, so far as it lias not been forced upon 
us fron* outside influences, has been of his (Moulton's) procuring. 

Again he answers tc another question as follows : 

Q. The " devices " — did that refer to all the places and arrangements 
and steps that had been taken ? A. It referred to this : It 1 had been 
left to manage this matter simply myself, I should have said "yes" or 
" no." That would have been the whole of it ; but instead of that the 
matter went into Moulton's hands, and Moulton is a man that loves in- 
trigue in such a way that, as Lady Montague said of somebody, " he 
would not carve a cabbage unless he could steal on it from behind and 
do it by a device." 

Let us see if this is true. I certainly did not manage the " device " 
of getting the retraction from Mrs. Tilton of December 30, 1870. I did 
not manage the "device" of the reconciliation with Bowen in 1870. I 
did not manage the " device" of the tripartite covenant. I did not sug- 
gest his proposed letter to Claflin, and of his sending me to him to ascer- 
tain whether he had learned the " very bottom facts." I did not suggest 
the " device " of putting the card in the Brooklyn Eagle denying the 
facts — I only made it more intelligible. I did not suggest the "device" 
of attempting to stop the mouth of Mrs. Hooker, for I could know 
nothing about it until Beecher came to me with it. 

I did not suggest the " device" of his proposed card to Tilton by which 
he should repudiate the Woodhull statement. I did not manage or sug- 
gest the "devices" of the two letters of February 7, 1871, that I should 
be made a priest at the altar of reconciliation, because it appears from 
the letters themselves I was then on a sick-bed. I did not suggest the 
"device" as to his letters to Mrs. Woodhull, for he wrote them and then 
sent them to me for my approval. I did not suggest the " devices " of 
silence, or of writing to Shearman to send letters of explanation to Mr. 
31 



482 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Tilton, nor the letter to Mr. Cleveland, of which he sent me a copy; nor 
of sending Cleveland with his horse and buggy to hunt Carpenter, in 
order to shut up his mouth, lest his statement should appear '-to have 
come from head-quarters," as Beecher wrote me lie had done it. Neither 
did I manage the " device," since the publication of the Bacon letter, of 
the proposed statement for Tilton to make to the committee in reply to 
the one which he (Beecher) was to make. 

These all, as appears from the letters and documents themselves, are 
the emanations of Mr. Beecher 's own diplomacy to cover up the fact 
that he had given bad advice to the wife of his friend upon a misstate- 
ment of the truth as to a domestic difference. Is Mr. Beecher to be 
believed when he states all these were my " devices ; " or rather, was not 
his state of mind better described by himself in his cross-examination 
where he is asked to explain— what indeed is unexplainable on any other 
theory than the truth of his guilt— his letter of February 7, 1871 ? 1 
quote : 

Q. In your letter of the same date to Mr. Moulton this occurs : 
"Would to God, who orders all hearts, and by his kind mediation, Theo- 
dore, Elizabeth, and I could be made friends again. Theodore will have 
the hardest task in such a case." Precisely what did you mean ? Why 
that last sentence ? A. It is all a muddle to me, as 1 don't recall the 
precise working ot my mind. 

It is indeed true that his mind is all " a muddle" in undertaking to 
carry through the explanation made by his lawyers. Yet even this 
poor excuse, that " he cannot recall the workings of his mind," he does 
not leave to himself, because in his written statement he says : " I labor 
under great disadvantages in making a statement. My memory of states 
of mind is clear and tenacious, better than memory of dates and 
details ; " and yet in his cross-examination he utterly breaks down upon 
" the state of his mind " and declares it " all a muddle." 

But it is not my purpose, nor will it be profitable, to push the analy- 
sis of this statement of Mr. Beecher's lawyers further. From these 
specimens of its inconsistencies, and from these contradictions of the 
facts, I shall leave the truth of our respective statements to be judged 
of by all good men who take an interest in them. 

I have here at first given what I am sorry to say is a prolix but faith- 
ful narrative of every event and act in which 1 took part, with the docu- 
ments and papers, occurring since the inception of the Bacon letter. 
And I ask the judgment of every candid mind upon the question of 
veracity first herein stated, whether the statement of Henry Ward 
Beecher before the committee— that " when that (Bacon) letter was 
published and Mr. Moulton, on my visiting him in reference to it, pro- 
posed no counter-operation — no documents, no help — I was staggered, 
and when Tilton subsequently published his statement, after he came to 
this committee, when that came out I never heard a word from Moulton ; 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 483 

he never sent for me, nor visited me, nor did a thing ; 1 waited for him 
to say or do something " — can be true in general or in either particular. 

His averment covers the whole period from before the 2 1st of June 
to the hour he made his statement. Does he not know that lie himself 
placed in my hands his proposition in his own handwriting as to what 
Tilton should say in reply to his statement before the committee, writ- 
ten more than three weeks after the publication of the Bacon letter ? 
Does he not know he visited my house in reference to my own state- 
ment, to be made before his committee, when he came according to his 
letter of appointment ot July 13 ? Does he not know that I wrote out 
for him my view of the words by which he could shield himself from the 
consequences of that Bacon letter, to be used in his pulpit, which he 
copied out to show to his friends ? Does he not remember when he put 
his arms around my neck, during that consultation of the 5th of July, 
fourteen days after the Bacon letter, and in the presence of my business 
partner spoke of me as the " best friend that God ever raised up to a 
man?" In view of these facts thus vouched, how can he stand before 
the community otherwise than as a convicted falsifier and slanderer of 
" his only and best friend," who was loyally doing all he could to save 
him day by day ? 

From this bitter issue there is in my own mind for Beecher but one 
escape, to which I gladly turn — that these statements are put into his 
mouth by his lawyers and advisers, and are not his own; and while that 
may well protect him from the charge of ungrateful, wicked lying, at 
the same moment it disposes of his statement to the committee as evi- 
dence in this controversy not being the truth told by himself or another, 
but the special plea of his counsel. 

Whatever may have been my own mistakes in acting for him ; what- 
ever may have been the faults and foolishness of my advice in his 
behalf, to save him in the years of his deadly peril, thank God they 
brought him into no such terrible dilemma as this, by which his char- 
acter as a man of truth and Christian piety is forever gone or his pre- 
tended statement ceases to be evidence in his own behalf! 

I have gone through all these facts with another purpose also, and 
that is that I may in some degree reinstate myself with the public from 
the charge of treachery and broken faith to Mr. Beecher, which, if true, 
ought to render any word I might say in my own behalf as to any other 
charge useless. 

If I have not thereby succeeded in substantiating my truthfulness as 
a witness, my purity of motive and the loyalty of my conduct towards 
Beecher — always acknowledging everything of unwisdom or want of 
judgment in my actions that may justly be alleged against me — all that 
I may say further in regard to the charges of blackmail so liberally 
visited upon me by Mr. Beecher may as well remain unsaid. 



484 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

As to the charge of blackmailing upon Rev. Mr. Beecher, I premise 
by saying that whatever money transactions were had with him in this 
regard were had through myself alone ; and therefore if blackmail was 
levied upon Mr. Beecher, as he avers, it was done by my procurement 
and consent, and for which I am alone blamable, as I confirm his own 
statement that Tilton never spoke to him on the subject of money. 
Beecher's account of the blackmailing is substantially as follows, bein" 
abbreviated from various parts of his statement and cross-examination : 

Money has been obtained from me in the course of these affairs in 
considerable sums, but I did not at first look upon the suggestions that 
1 should contribute to Mr. Tilton's pecuniary wants as savoring of 
blackmail This did not occur to me until I had paid perhaps $2000. 
Afterward I contributed at one time $5000. After the money had been 
paid over in five $1000 bills— to raise which I mortgaged the house I 
live in— I felt very much dissatisfied with myself about it. 

Again he gives this account of the $7000 in his cross-examination- 
all the money that he says he ever paid : 

Q. By Mr. Cleveland— In your statement you have alluded to one 
payment of $5000. Have you furnished any other money to those 
parties ? A. I have furnished at least $2000 besides the $5000. 

Q. To whom did you pay that money ? A. To Mr. Moulton. 

Q. In various sums ? A. In various sums, partly in cash and partly 
in checks. 

Q. Have you any of those checks ? A. I have several ; I don't 
remember how many. 

Q. Where are they ? A. I have some of them here ; one of June 23, 
1871, drawn on the Mechanics' Bank to the order of Frank Moulton, 
and indorsed in his handwriting; and one of November 10. 1871, payable 
to the order of Frank Moulton and indorsed in his handwriting; and of 
May 29, 1872, to the order of Frank D. Moulton. and also indorsed in 
his handwriting. Each of these that are marked for deposit across 
the face have been paid. 

Q. As nearly as you can recollect, how much money went into the 
hands of Mr. Moulton? A. I should say I have paid $7000. 

Q. To what use did you suppose that money was to be appropriated ? 
A. I supposed that it was to be appropriated to extricate Mr. Tilton 
from his difficulties in some way. 

Q. You did not stop to inquire how or why? A. Moulton sometimes 
sent me a note, saying, " I wish you would send me your check for so 
much." 

Q. Did you usually respond to the demands of Mr. Moulton for money 
during those months ? A. I always did. 

Q. Under what circumstances did you come to pay the $5000 in one 
sum ? A. Because it was represented to me that the whole difficulty 
could be now settled by that amount of money, which would put the 
affairs of the Golden Age on a secure footing; that they would be able 
to <ro right on, and that with the going on of them the safety of Tilton 
would be assured, and that would be the settlement of the whole thing. 
It was to save Tilton pecuniarily. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 485 

It will be observed that in this account of the $7000 — all that he 
claims he ever paid — Mr. Beecher does not allege that the thought of 
blackmailing was in his mind until after he had paid the $2000, or that 
Tilton had ever asked him for any money. It will also be observed that 
he produces certain checks to the committee in his cross-examination, 
but does not give the several amounts of those checks but does the dates. 
But being in the position of being required to tell the whole truth, he 
entirely conceals the fact that a large portion of the $2000 was paid for 
the education and support of the girl Bessie Turner, now his swift wit- 
ness before the committee, contradicting two written statements which 
have been published, made by her relative to the same facts, wherein 
she designates what she tells before the committee as a " wicked lie." 
See her letter : 

BESSIE TURNER TO ELIZABETH TILTON. 

January 12. 
The story that Mr. Tilton once lifted me from my bed and carried 
[sic] me screaming to his own and attempted to violate my person is a 
wicked lie. Yours truly, Bessie. 

She now says that she was carried " sleeping," not " screaming." For 
a young woman of twenty she slept reasonably soundly, as she did not 
wake up till after she was in his bed ! 

Her character for truth and virtue has been by Beecher's advisers 
thus forever ruined to save him, because, as the story was first told, no 
young girl was ever " lifted from her bed and carried screaming to his 
own " by a ruthless ravager and remained pure, especially as the witness 
nowhere suggests that he was interfered with. 

The checks which he produced before the committee, which are not 
published, will be seen, I have no doubt, to have been payments on her 
account, as their dates show them to be six months apart, as her half- 
yearly bills became due, with perhaps a single exception. Let me say 
to Mr. Beecher that if he will apply to the principal of the Steubenville 
(O.) schools he can find out just how much he has paid there, and Mrs. 
Tilton can tell him what became of the rest of the supposed two thou- 
sand dollars. All this matter of the support of this girl was arranged 
by Mrs. Tilton and Beecher, Tilton doing nothing about it. and a portion 
of the money was paid to Mrs. Tilton herself, as appears by the following 
letter, extracted from my published statement : 

Tuesday, January 18, 1873. 
Dear Francis : — Be kind enough to send me $50 for Bessie. I want 
to enclose it in to-morrow's mail. 

Yours gratefully, Elizabeth. 

Would not ingenuous truth have required Mr. Beecher to state that 
this large sum was paid for this young girl's support in order to relieve 
him from his difficulty and prevent the exposure of the recital of his 



486 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

own acts, which she had heard in the family, in the neighborhood where 
thoy were most likely to be taken up ? Did he not know the facts? 
Will anybody believe him when he intimates in his examination that he 
did not know ? Is it possible that he never asked his dear friend Moulton 
where this money was going to, especially as he is careful to instruct 
Moulton to "feed out" the $5000 to Tilton? Instead, he puts forward 
the phrases : " Money has been obtained from me in the course of these 
affairs in considerable sums ; but I did not at first look upon the sug- 
gestions that I should contribute to Mr. Tilton's pecuniary wants as sa- 
voring of blackmail " — thus putting the amount of the $2000 and $5000 
in his statement as if they went together to Tilton for the same pur- 
pose. 

In order to give color to this allegation of blackmail, trumped up after 
the charges against Tilton of forging letters and insanity had failed 
them, Beecher's lawyers make the following report of the conversation 
of July 5 in answer to a question prepared for that purpose : 

Q. Did Moulton ever question you in regard to this matter whether 
you had ever spoken on that to any one. or expressed any anxiety in 
your mind about it ? A. He did, not many weeks ago, among the last 
interviews I had with him. 

Q. Since the publication of that Bacon letter? A. Yes; I think it 
was on the Sabbath-day after the appointment of this committee. I 
preached but once on that day, and on the afternoon of that day he saw 
me and said to me in a conversation: " You have never mentioned about 
that $5000 ? " I said : " Yes, I had, to one or two persons. I men- 
tioned to Oliver Johnson for one. because he was saying something to 
me one day about what some of Tilton's friends were saying, and I inci- 
dentally mentioned that to him. which he never repeated, I suppose, to 
anybody." Moulton said : " I will never admit that ; I shall deny it 
always." 

In regard to this statement Beecher is wholly mistaken, if he does not 
intend to falsify. I remember that part of the conversation very well 
and what I said on that occasion to him, which was: "General Tracy, 
your counsel, says that yon must never say anything about the payment 
of any money on account of Tilton, because that will go very much 
against you. Have you ever said anything ? " Beecher replied : " Only 
to Oliver Johnson, who will keep it to himself, and I never will say any- 
thing about it to anybody else." That was all that was said upon the 
matter of keeping silence about that money. 

Now when the fact is seen that I especially and exactly set forth, as 
well the money paid Mrs. Tilton and for Bessie's support as the $5000 
in my statement prepared for the committee, without being called upon 
to so do by anybody, and while I supposed it rested wholly between 
Beecher and myself, and Beecher himself says it did wholly rest be- 
tween him and Johnson, why should I have at the very hour that I was 
looking forward to the probability of making my statement before the 



THE BBOOKLYN SCANDAL. 487 

committee that I have made, stated to Beecher that I never would admit 
it to anybody ? I frankly confess that I never had told it to anybody, 
and never meant to tell it to anybody, not on Beecher's account, because 
I thought the advance of $5000 to the Golden Age was an act of noble- 
ness and generosity on his part, and so said in my statement, and my 
only desire to keep it secret was lest it should get to Tilton that he was 
under obligations to Beecher. It never occurred to my thought, under 
any circumstances whatever or in any form, that it could enter into the 
imagination of man that this was an extortion of money from Beecher. 
On the contrary, he knew that I myself had advanced sums in aid' of 
Tilton's enterprise, who had never accused me of any improper intimacy 
with or advances towards his wife. My partners had subscribed and 
advanced money for the purpose of supporting the Golden Age. Many 
other prominent citizens of Brooklyn had done the same tiling, and I 
had no thought that Beecher was doing anything other and different 
from what the rest of us were doing — except that he had, perhaps, an 
additional personal motive — to sustain an enterprise which we all favored, 
and the results of which were looked upon as an honor to journalism. 

It will also be observed upon a careful examination of Beecher's own 
statement, although attempted to be concealed by ambiguous phrases, 
that the suggested payment of $5000 first came to me from him, and 
was not made by me to him ; and that part of his statement which 
relates to what I told him in regard to the kind friend who had made an 
advance to Theodore Tilton in cash and notes would have been quite 
nearly correct if he had added the rest of the truth which I then told 
him — that Tilton had refused to receive that advance from the party 
offering to make it ; and that I also told him at the same time that Til- 
ton, I was sure, would not take any money from him, and therefore it 
was arranged between us that it should be given to Tilton in small sums 
as coming from me, as I had already made him like advances. Nor did 
the amount of $5000 which Beecher subscribed seem to meat all extrav- 
agant for him to give. Having been for many years m the possession 
of a reputed income, from his salary and literary labor, of from forty to 
fifty tuousand a year, and having apparently reasonably economical 
habits of living, I supposed him to be a man of very considerable if not 
large fortune, from his almost necessary accumulations, and I leave him 
to explain why it was, with such ample income, from which he ought to 
have accumulated a large fortune with habits of prudence and no known 
extraordinary expenses, to explain how he had impoverished himself 
and impaired his* credit to so great an extent as not to be able to raise 
the paltry sum of $5000 from among his rich parishioners without mort- 
gaging his house, unless, indeed, he felt called upon to support others as 
he did Bessie. 

I will venture to mention the name of another gentleman who has 



488 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

shown himself in this controversy to be a staunch and fast friend of 
Beecher, and who, before ever he proposed it to rne, had advised Beecher 
that he ought to subscribe in aid of Tilton, and to whom Beecher, as he 
reported, made the reply that he had offered to give money in order to 
aid Tilton, but he would not receive it. I now refer to Mr. Thomas 
Kinsella, of the Brooklyn Eagle, who has so loyally supported Beecher 
in thi3 his final struggle for his pulpit and good name. 

]t will also be observed that Beecher in his statement says that I was 
to " feed out " this money to Tilton, which exactly comports with what 
I said in my statement that I was to give it to him from time to time 
as I found he needed it, and that I had not yet paid all of that sum to 
him, as the account in my published statement shows. Why, then, 
with that knowledge and that statement by Beecher that this money 
was to be "fed out," does Beecher speak of the "mollifying effect" of 
$5000 to Tilton, which he now confesses he knew Tilton had not re- 
ceived, and why say that Tilton had had "his gold jingling in his 
pockets" for years? Or are these insinuations and flings on so solemn 
an occasion only the "jokes" which Mrs. Morse, Mrs. Tilton's mother, 
says " he cracked from Sunday to Sunday, while he leaves his victim 
suffering in cold and hunger at home, mourning for her sin ?" I quote 
from Mrs. Morse's letter of January 27, 1871, published in my former 
statement : 

But this is a death-blow to us both, and I doubt not Florence [Tilton's 
daughter] lias hers. Do you know when I hear of your cracking your 
jokes from Sunday to Sunday and think of the misery you have 
brought upon us, I think with the psalmist: "There is no God." 

Mrs. Morse is now one of his witnesses before Beecher's committee 
and his adopted mother from a spiritual marriage with her daughter, as 
will be shown by the following letter, which I here insert, marked " R " : 

MRS. MORSE TO BEECHER. 

October 24. 

My Dear "Sox " :— Yon must pardon me for the request I now make. 
Can you help me in any way by the first of November? I am still 
alone." with no prospect of any one. with a rent of $1500 and an income 
of $1000. The consequence is. with other expenses, I shall be by the 
first of the month terribly behindhand, as I agreed to pay in monthly 
instalments. 

I know full well I have no claim upon you ir. any way [sic], excepting 
your sympathy for my lonely and isolated condition. If 1 could be re- 
leased from the house I should gladly do so, for I'm convinced it's too 
far out. All who have been to see my rooms say so. My darling spent 
most of yesterday with me. She said* all she had in the way of money 
was forty dollars per week, which was for food and all other household 
expenses aside from rent, and this was given her by hand of Annie 
Tilton every Saturday. If yon know anything of the amount it takes 
to find food for eight people you must know there's little left for cloth- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 489 

ing. She told me he (T.) did not take any meals home from the fact 
she could not get such food as he liked to nourish his brain, and so he 
took his meals at Moulton's. Just think of that ! 

I am almost crazy with the thought. Do come and see me. I will 
promise that the '• secret of her life/' as she calls it. shall not be men- 
tioned. I know it's hard to bring it up, as you must have suffered in- 
tensely, and we all will. I fear, till released by death. Do you pray for 
me ? If not. pray do. I never felt more rebellious than now, more 
need of God's and human help. Do you know I think it strange yon 
should ask me to call you '• son." When I have told darling, I felt if 
yon could in safety to yourself and all concerned, you would be to me 
all this endearing name. Am I mistaken ? Mother. 

This letter bears date October 24. I fix the date to be in 1871, because 
it was at that time that Mrs. Morse had the house for which she wa-s 
paying $1500 rent, and is the time when Tilton was allowing his wife 
forty dollars per week for household expenses. This letter was given me 
by Beecher as written by Mrs. Morse, Elizabeth's mother, and is a call 
on him for money, which may explain the necessity for mortgaging his 
house otherwise than by paying $5000 to me. It is the outside family 
that is always the most onerous to a man. 

It will be remembered that Elizabeth confessed that Beecher asked 
her to be his wife, with all that the name implies. Mrs. Morse tells 
him — and she would not dare tell him so if it was not so — " do you know 
I think it strange you should ask me to call you ' son.' "When I have 
told darling, I felt if you could in safety to yourself and all concerned, 
you would be to me all this endearing name. Am I mistaken ? " 

The delicacy of this adopted mother, who says : " Do come and see 
me. I will promise the ' secret of her life.' as she calls it. shall not be 
mentioned." will be appreciated, especially because she knows it is cruel 
to bring it up, (, as you must have suffered intensely, and we all will, I 
fear, till released by death." 

Who believes that this note to Mr. Beecher — a married man — accom- 
panied by a demand for money, with the reminder of the " secret " of a 
daughter's li;'e. means only that Beecher once gave some bad advice 
about a separation between man and wife, which, so far as I know, never 
took place? 

The trouble is. Beecher mistakes the persons who blackmailed him. 
It was Mrs. Morse and Bessie, and nobody else, and they are now re- 
paying him by testifying in his behalf. If such conduct as this goes 
unpunished and unrebuked, unchristian men will be prone to agree with 
the Psalmist and Mrs. Morse, that - there is no God." 

Upon the whole, there were very curious relationships among these 
parties by adoption, which I think it would trouble a heraldry office to 
make a family tree, and which seem to have been a mystery even to 
Mrs. Morse, for she says in her first letter which I have quoted above, 



490 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

" The remark you made to me at your door was an enigma to me, and 
every day adds to the mystery : ' Mrs. Beecher has adopted the child.' 
'What child?' I asked. You said 'Elizabeth.' Now I ask what 
earthly sense was there in that remark?" Mrs. Beecher had adopted 
Elizabeth ; Beecher had adopted her mother, and wanted Elizabeth to 
be all that a wife could be to him ; and Mrs. Morse says she believes 
he would be all the endearing name of son can be to her. and wants to 
know if she is mistaken. Query : Under this arrangement, what rela- 
tion is Mrs. Beecher to Beecher if she had adopted the child of his 
mother, and her husband had married the daughter of her mother ? 
Who wonders that Mrs. Morse thought it a mystery ? 

I am not specially acquainted with the habits of men and women 
who obtain money by blackmail, but I had supposed if they so obtained 
money they did what they pleased with it, and not have it doled out by 
a third person in little sums as he deemed there was need, without the 
knowledge of the blackmailer where it came from, who obtained the 
money by threats and extortion. 

Again, Beecher says that " my confidential friend " told him that 
Tilton would publish his statement unless another $5000 was paid, 
which he refused to do. Does Beecher mean that I was that friend ? 
If he meant so, why did he not say so ? He knows that I never sug- 
gested that he should pay a dollar, or ever believed that the matter 
could be composed by the payment of money, as it might have been by 
other proper action if he had acted like a noble and courageous man, 
as I at one time hoped he might do and might be. This statement is 
insinuated to prejudice me in advance after he learned, on the 4th of 
August last, he couid not use the best friend that " God ever raised up 
to a man" to act dishonestly and falsely to serve his selfish purposes. 
The charge is as false as another answer made on cross-examination to 
injure me by showing that I opened his letters, as follows : 

Q. By Mr. Winslow — Can you tell us what became of Mrs. Wood- 
hull's threatening letter ? A. Mr. Moulton opened it. 

The falsehood of this answer can be shown in a moment. That 
threatening letter — as indeed both letters from Woodhull to Beecher — 
were sent to me — was dated June 3, 1872, and was sent enclosed in a 
note from Beecher to me of the same date, with a request to answer it, 
as follows : 

My Dear Moulton : — Will you answer this ? Or will you see that 
she is to understand that I can do nothing? I certainly shall not, at 
any and all hazards, take a single step in that direction, and if it brings 
trouble — it must come. Please drop me a line to say that all is right 
— if, in your judgment, all is right. Truly yours, 

H. W. B. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 491 

Why does this minister of the gospel make such reckless statements ? 
Again, let me ask, does any man wonder, when they fall into such con- 
tradictions with his own letters, that Beecher and his lawyers should 
have desired so much to get possession of my documents, in order that 
they might square their statements and escape these contradictions ? 

And in the whole course of all the negotiations had with his friends 
or his counsel as to the settlement of this controversy after the publi- 
cation of the Bacon letter, I challenge any one to say that the word 
money was ever used by me, or by Tilton in my presence, as a method 
of settling this matter. True, before that publication I said to Tilton — 
what I say here openly and freely — that from my own fortune I would 
give $5000 in gold to save its publication. And I also stated the fact 
that I so said to Beecher ; and I also said to him that he had better 
give his whole fortune if that would stop it (and I believed it much 
larger then than I do now), in order to convince him how necessary it 
was, in my judgment, that this controversy should not be reopened. 

No letter will be produced, I venture to say, from Tilton, and, I know, 
none from me or from mine, asking Beecher to take any course except 
to keep silence, and cover his own sins as well as he might in this un- 
happy affair ; and the only thing that seems to me like blackmailing 
him because of his connection with Mrs. Tilton, is the plain demand of 
her mother (and, as now appears, his adopted mother). Mrs. Morse, that 
he should use his influence as a Christian minister to reappoint her 
brother in the custom house at New York. 'And Elizabeth was dis- 
appointed that he did not, too." 

I now produce certain letters of Mr. Beecher, which seem to contain 
an answer to his charge that when he paid the $5000 he thought it was 
blackmailing, and was very much "dissatisfied with himself" for doing 
it. If he was so dissatisfied he certainly did not make it known to me, 
who had, as he says, extorted the money from him. It will be remem- 
bered that the $5000 was paid on the 2d of May, 1873. The 7th of the 
following July brought me a very cordial invitation to visit him at his 
house in the country, contained in the following letter of that date, 
marked "S": 

BEECHER TO MOTJLTOX. 

Peeksktll, July 7, 1873— Monday, 7 p. m. 

My Dear Frank :— I have just arrived. I called Saturday evening, 
to learn that you would not return till Monday. Can you come up Tues- 
day or Wednesday or Thursday ? Let me know by letter or telegram. 
The trains are a. m. 8, 9.10, 10.45 ; p. m. 2, 4, 4.15, 5.30, 6.20, and 7. The 
four p. m. is express and good train : if you come in the afternoon, you 
should allow forty-five minutes from City Hall to reach Forty-second 
street station, and about one hour from your store. 

I have not seen you since the card. I will take good care of you, and 
even if others don't think so much of you as I do, I will try and make 



492 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

up. My vacation is begun, and am I not glad ? Next week we expect 
company. 

The drought is severe — no real soaking since the last of May, and 
things are suffering; but yet the country is beautiful. The birds are as 
good to me as David's harp. I only need some one to talk to, and that 
one is you. 

Come when you can, and, coming or going, believe me faithfully and 
affectionately yours, H. W. B. 

It will be seen that to complete his happiness he only wanted "some 
one to talk to, and that one is you" — the man who had just extorted 
money from his as blackmail so that he felt " dissatisfied with himself," 
and to whom he says, " Coming or going, believe me faithfully and affec- 
tionately yours, H. W. B." 

On the 9th came another invitation in a letter of that date, which I 
insert, marked M T " : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

Thursday Evening, 9 July, 1873. 

My Dear Frank : — Why not come on Saturday and spend Sunday? 
You must get your comfort out of Nature and me, and not notice any 
withholding of countenance elsewhere. 

I preach in the village in the morning, but you can lie on the hill-side 
— in peace. 

The afternoon and evening will be open for all gracious influences 
which forests hide or heavens distil. The birds are not yet silent, 
though their pipes are somewhat feebler. Flowers are burnt, grass 
withered, grain reaped, grapes not ripe, strawberries gone, blackberries 
not come, raspberries in good condition and abundant, also watermelons, 
and, besides, a demijohn of— water ! 

I want to see you and show you a letter, etc. Do you hear what 
Bowen is doing? Will he publish ? Find out if anything is on hand. 

Truly yours, II. W. B. 

Send me a line Friday if you shall come, so that I may meet the train ; 
otherwise pay your own hack hire. 

This, it will be seen, promises me every inducement and entertain- 
ment if I would come. Besides he wants to see his blackmailer and to 
" show him a letter, etc." For what purpose ? — to be blackmailed 
again? He also wants to know w T hat Bowen is doing, and whether he 
will publish any statement. Was ever blackmailer treated by his victim 
so before ? The only punishment he threatens to put upon his black- 
mailer is that if he will not so arrange his business that his victim can 
have the chance of meeting him and driving him home in his carriage, 
he shall have to pay his own hack hire. 

I also produce another letter of July 14, 1873, which, if it is not a full 
refutation of the charge that, up to that time, I had blackmailed 
Beecher or aided in blackmailing him, or that he believed I had done 
anything except in his interest, a charge of blackmail can never be con- 
tradicted. It is here inserted, marked " U " : 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 493 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

My Dear Frank : — I looked for you Saturday, and received your note 
tliis morning — Monday. 

Howard writes that T. T. has sent to Mr. Halliday a note announcing 
that he did not consider himself for two years a member of the church. 

There is also a movement to let the other party (meaning Bowen) go 
to trial, and also to give him an avoidance of trial by some form of let- 
ter, I don't know what. I have not been consulted. I do not mean to 
meddle. It is vacation. Governor Claflin and wife, of Mass., will be 
here this week. I am getting at my writing again — at work on my 
book. I despaired of finishing it. I am more encouraged now. For a 
thousand encouragements — for service that no one can appreciate who 
has not been as sore-hearted as I have been, for your honorable delicacy, 
for confidence and affection — I owe you so much that I can neither ex- 
press nor pay it. Not the least has been the great-hearted kindness and 
trust which your noble wife has shown, and which have lifted me out of 
despondencies often, though sometimes her clear truthfulness has laid 
me pretty flat. 

I mean to run down some day. Will let you know beforehand, that I 
may not miss you, for to tell the truth I am a little heart-hungry to see 
you ; not now because I am pressed, but because I love you, and will 
ever be faithfully yours, Henry Ward Beecher. 

Peekskill, July 14, 1873. 

This shows how utterly and confidingly Mr. Beecher trusted me, and 
yet he now states that I had been blackmailing him for years and that 
Tilton had been a co-conspirator with me. And yet this letter recites 
that Tilton had written a note to the assistant pastor of the church that 
he had not considered himself a member for two years. 

Again, the letter shows that as to " the other party," Bowen, his 
church was colloguing together to give him an avoidance of a trial by 
some form of letter for the slanders of Bowen, lest Beecher should be 
injured. I say the church was colloguing, because Beecher says he had 
not been consulted and did not mean to meddle. 

Mark, I call attention again, to emphasize it, to this letter in order 
that there may be no mistake as to what Beecher's opinion was of the 
man who he now says he felt was blackmailing him at the time, to the 
phrases : " For a thousand encouragements, for service that no one can 
appreciate who has not been as sorehearted as I have been, for your 
honorable delicacy " — what, delicate blackmailing ? — " for confidence 
and affection, I owe you so much that I can neither express nor pay it." 

Again, mark his promised visit to the blackmailer in these words : 
" To tell the truth, I am a little heart-hungry to see you, not because I 
am pressed, but because I love you, and will ever be faithfully yours." 

I think I may be pardoned for lingering over this letter, for in it is 
my vindication, from a black charge to which Henry Ward Beecher is 
driven, to save himself, to make against me. Not only was I serving 
him at this time, but my wife — w T ho knew all and knows all that I know 



494 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

— was saving him from despondencies and threatened suicide, and this 
letter gives the thanks he felt for her efforts, "although," he says, 
" sometimes her clear truthfulness has laid me pretty flat." I have 
already given one of those exhibitions of her truthfulness when she 
advised him to confess his sin, and ask forgiveness of man as he ex- 
pected forgiveness of God. 

Again I produce a letter of October 3, 1873, five months after the 
time when he says in his statement, he believed that I was blackmailing 
him and "felt dissatisfied with himself," that he permitted it. It is 
marked " V" : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

Friday Noon, October 3, 1873. 
My Dear Frank : — I have this morning got back, sound and fresh, 
and want to send my love to you and yours. I should see you to-morrow, 
but shall be out of town till evening. God bless you, my dear old fellow ! 

H. W. Beecher. 

Let all the lawyers search all the annals of the crime of blackmailing, 
overhaul every police report, and produce another instance where, five 
months after it was known to the victim, he addresses his blackmailer 
with a " God bless you, ray dear old fellow ! " 

It will be observed that these letters which I have thus far produced 
upon this question were subsequent to the time he learned that he was 
blackmailed. I now produce a letter of previous date, February 16, 1873, 
enclosing a check of that date, which is marked " W" : 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

Sunday Morning, February 16, 1873. 

My Dear Frank : — I have tried three times to see you this week, but 
the fates were against me. I wanted to store up a little courage and 
hopefulness before my three weeks' absence. 

I revisit my old home and haunts, and shall meet great cordiality. 

I enclose check, subject to your discretion. 

Should any accident befall me, remember how deeply I feel your 
fidelity and friendship, your long-continued kindness and your affection. 

With kindest remembrances to Mrs. M., I remain always yours, 

H. W. Beecher. 

This discloses a still more singular transaction, because it shows that, 
without being called upon, the victim has tried three times to see me in 
one week, but failed. He was to be absent for three weeks, going to his 
old home, and wanted " to store up a little courage and hopefulness " 
for the occasion, although his old friends were to meet him with great 
cordiality. He says, " I enclose a check, subject to your discretion" — 
that is, "Feed my lambs while I am away." Why don't Beecher pro- 
duce the check of that date among those that he paraded before the 
committee, and let us see how much of the $2000 that made ? I wait 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 495 

for his reply before I speak further, lest " other hearts ache." Not con- 
tent with expressions of gratitude while leaving, the note shows that he 
makes a will. He leaves it as a legacy to me, in case of accidental death, 
that he died with the memory in his heart of my fidelity, friendship 
and long-continued affection. 

Is it necessary to my vindication that I should pursue this miserable 
afterthought of a charge of blackmail further ? 

If to obtain advantage to oneself by using the unfortunate situation 
of another is blackmail, then Beecher himself will come fully within 
that description. Beecher protected himself from Bowen by using the 
power that Tilton had over Bowen to get the tripartite covenant out of 
him, and yet he puts the fact in exactly the contrary light : 

The domestic offence which he (Tilton) alleged was very quietly and 
easily put aside, but yet in such a way as to keep my feelings stirred up, in 
order that I might, through my friends, be used to extract from Mr. 
Bowen $7000, the amount of a claim in dispute among them. The check 
for that sum in hand, Mr. Tilton signed an agreement of peace and con- 
cord, not made by me, but accepted by me as sincere. 

The precise contrary of this is true. Mr. Bowen had made certain 
charges against Beecher, and thereby caused Tilton to write a letter on 
the 26th of December, 1870, requiring Beecher to leave his church and 
city, which Bowen carried to Beecher. Why should Tilton have selected 
Bowen to be the bearer of such a letter if Bowen had not made the 
statements which Tilton recites in his letter to him were made, when 
Oliver Johnson was present, of five different acts and specifications of 
adulterous intercouse with five different women? 

That letter was read by Beecher, and the dreadful accusations made 
by Bowen were fully known to him ; and as this matter was contempo- 
raneous wltn the accusations made by Tilton as to his own wife, Beecher 
desired that I should endeavor to protect him from these also, and in- 
sisted that I should agree to a reference to an arbitration, of which his 
friend and present committeeman, Mr. H. B. Claflin, was chairman, and 
submit Theodore's claim for damages for breach of contract by Bowen 
to that arbitration. And after a full hearing, in which all these so grave 
charges by Bowen to Tilton against Beecher — one of which was no less 
than rape — were stated in Bowen's and their presence, the arbitration 
unanimously agreed, first, that Bowen should pay Tilton $7000 for a 
breach of his contract, and it was also made a condition that Bowen and 
Tilton should sign a covenant that they would not thereafterwards re- 
peat accusations which were annexed to the paper ; a majority of Bowen's 
friends on that arbitration — who had been agreed to by me because they 
were Beecher's friends — insisting upon Boven and Tilton signing such 
a covenant in behalf of Beecher before Bowen and Tilton could have their 
money accounts settled ; all of which was done at the same day and 



49G THE TKUE HISTOEY OF 

date. So that Beecher in fact used Tilton's position with Bowen to 
extort from Bowen a certificate of good character, and that, too, after he 
had agreed to give Bowen three business advantages, and had also given 
him a certificate of good character and conduct in the church, in Febru- 
ary, 1870, which he renewed at this time in these words : 

I deeply regret the causes of suspicion, jealousy, and estrangement 
which have come between us. It is a joy for me to have my old regard 
for Henry C. Bowen and Theodore Tilton restored, and a happiness to 
me to resume the old relations of love, respect, and reliance to each and 
both of them. 

How could Beecher, it innocent, have signed such a certificate as that 
to Bowen upon a simple withdrawal of the charges, one of which de- 
scribed a brutal rape, without any averment that they were untrue, 
Bowen merely saying that he did not " know anything of them ? " And 
yet, without even the withdrawal of those charges privately a year be- 
fore, after these statements had been made by Bowen, and after the 
accusations were well known to Beecher, " after hours of conference, 
everything was adjusted and we shook hands ; " and Beecher stated ttie 
fact ot the reconciliation in Plymouth Church, and spoke highly of his 
Christian brother Bowen, and a new adjustment was obtained again in 
the manner I have stated at the time of the tripartite covenant. I do 
not republish the documents which show all this* under Beecher's own 
hand, as they are already published in my former statement and litho- 
graphed. 

I agree that these facts are so unusual, so strange, so more startling 
than anything in fiction, that if I should state them upon my bare word 
I should challenge discredit everywhere except among those who know 
me well. But that they probably were well known to Mr. H. B. Claflin, 
one of Beecher's committee, will appear from a letter heretofore pub- 
lished from Beecher to me, which I reproduce, as follows : 

Monday. 

My Dear Friend:— I called last evening as agreed, but you had 
stepped out. On the way to church last evening I met Claflin. He 
says B. [Bowen] denies any such treacherous whisperings, and is in a 
right state. I mentioned my proposed letter. He liked the idea. I 
read him the draft of it (in the lecture-room). He drew back and said 
better not send it. I asked him if B. had ever made him a statement 
of the very bottom [sic] facts ; if there were any charges I did not know. 
He evaded and intimated that if he had he hardly would be right in tell- 
ing me. I think he would be right in telling you — ought to. I have 
not sent any note, and have destroyed that prepared. The real point to 
avoid is an appeal to church, and then to a council. Tt would be a confla- 
gration, and give every possible chance for parties, for hidings and eva- 
sions, and increase an hundred-fold this scandal without healing anything. 
I shall see you as soon as I return. Meantime I confide everything to 
your wisdom, as I always have, and with such success hitherto that I 
have full trust for future. Don't fail to see C. Claflin and have a full 
and confidential talk. Yours, ever. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 497 

It will be seeu from this note that it was not Tilton's accusations that 
I then had in charge, but Bowen's, and the real point to avoid was " an 
appeal to the church and then to a council," and with such an appeal it 
would be a " conflagration." 

In obedience to that letter I had a confidential talk with Claflin, and 
told him of the "treacherous whisperings" of Bowen, and also gave 
him the name of the party to whom Bowen had said that it was true 
that Beecher had made confession to him ; and, as nearly as I can 
remember, that Bowen had not and did not intend to retract the charges 
which he had made against Beecher. Mr. Claflin deemed this so serious 
that he thought it best to call on Bowen with me, and we went, accom- 
panied by the gentleman who had reported Bowen's conversation to me. 
and he repeated to Mr. Bowen in the presence of us all exactly what 
Bowen had said to him, " and," said he to Bowen, " if you say to the 
contrary you utter a falsehood." 

Now, to conceal these " bottom facts," known to me if not to Claflin, 
Beecher had influ'enced Claflin- to require, as arbitrator, the tripartite 
covenant — to which all Bowen's charges as set forth. in Tilton's letter 
of January 1, 1871, were annexed — as a condition of the settlement of 
money matters between Tilton and Bowen, which alone were referred to 
that arbitration. What were those " bottom facts ? " So far as Mr. 
Beecher is concerned, I have his full liberty to disclose all that I may 
know, as put in his public statement, and the public will now be in posi- 
tion to judge whether he really meant that I should : 

Q. Has Moulton any secret of yours in paper, in document, or in 
knowledge of any act of yours that you would not have see the light this 
hour ? A. Not that I am aware of. 

Q. Have you any doubt ? A. I have none. 

Q. Do you now call upon him to produce all he has and tell all he 

knows ? A. I do. 

■ 

[The passage of Mr. Moulton's statement in which he charges 
Mr. Beecher with criminal assault upon a reputable lady is 
omitted here because of the gross indecency of the language, and 
because it is a libel upon the aforesaid lady for which Mr. 
Moulton has been indicted by the Grand Jury of Kings 
county.] 

I submit that if I had been inclined to blackmail Henry Ward Beecher, 
either for myself or Tilton. Beecher knew, and the public now knows, in 
a degree, that I had much more cogent and all-powerful facts in my 
possession to strip him of his fortune to purchase my silence than the 
case of Mr. Tilton, and that if I had been, as he alleges, untrue to him, 
or if I had been, as is alleged in the report of his committee, a " coadju- 
32 



498 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

tor with Tilton," "secretly from the beginning" to extort money from 
Beecher through a series of years, instead of standing as a shield to him, 
protecting him any and every when against the consequences of his own 
wicked acts, and only receiving money from him to aid in so shielding him 
— first, to support and educate the girl Bessie lest she might injure him 
by prattling in the church under the influences of Mrs. Tilton's mother, 
Mrs. Morse, who, Bessie says, in her letter in former statement, prom- 
ised her dresses to tell lies, which fact she relates under her own hand 
■ — and only otherwise to aid him in some degree to repair the wrong 
which he admitted and now admits he had done to Tilton in breaking 
up his business, so that the temptation of poverty and want might not 
come to him as an inducement to turn upon Beecher, the author of his 
misfortunes ;— I say if I had been inclined to extort money from him, 
either Tilton or myself might to-day have been the recipients of all the 
salary, earnings and emoluments of Henry Ward Beecher, except 
enough only for a reasonably economical living for himself and family. 

In view of these terrible revelations, the question will, indeed, well be 
asked, as it lias been : "How could you, Mr. Moulton, sustain Beecher, 
knowing all these things, so monstrous, horrible and revolting?" To 
this question, urgently springing from the facts, I answer that I did not 
know them all at once, as the public now know them. I began in the 
interest of a friend. I met another man of brilliant genius and high 
standing, older than I. who asked my friendship, which I promised him, 
and who trusted me implicitly; and as disclosure came after disclosure, 
as fact piled on fact, I could only stagger along under the load. These 
acts of guilt had already been done, many of them, years before, and at 
the time he promised me most faithfully and with sincere sorrow, tears 
rolling down his cheek, that all that was past, and his future should be 
bright and holy, as Ins past had been deemed to be by those who knew 
hfm not. However much I might cease to respect or love any party in 
the controversy, yet there were other hearts to ache. There were inno- 
cent children to be destroyed, families — more than one or three — to be 
separated, and a blight put upon Christianity and a shock to the moral 
sense of the community such as it never before received, if I threw 
down my burden ; and therefore I have borne it as best I could, and now 
only speak in defence of my own honor, which I have endeavored to 
keep untarnished, so that those who come after me may not be over- 
whelmed in this maelstrom of vice and wickedness, in which I have 
nearly been submerged. 

It is also objected to me that when I have been questioned in regard 
to these facts I have made a denial of them ; and Mr. Beecher himself, 
or his lawyers, have had the temerity to publish in his statement a 
letter of mine to him of June 1, 1873, in answer to his despairing one of 
the same date, telling me how he had lost all hope, and intimating to 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 499 

me in writing, as he had frequently before in words, that his only refuge 
was suicide. 

Having made an allusion to Beechers suicide, it may be well for me 
to state here the full circumstances of his confession concerning his pro- 
posed design. He told me — and repeated to another in my presence — 
that he had within reach in his own study a poison, which he would 
take if the story of his crime with Elizabeth should ever come to the 
public. He told me of a visit which he had made to a photographer's 
gallery, where he learned that one of the employes had mistaken a glass 
of poison for a glass of water, and, having taken and drunken it, had 
fallen dead, with scarcely time to drop the glass. Beecher said that was 
what he wanted for himself; and, under plea of making some photo- 
graphic experiments, he procured some of this same poison from the 
photographer, which ne told me he intended to use if the revelation of 
his crime should be made. " And then," he said, "it would be simply 
reported that Beecher died of apoplexy ; but God and you and I will 
know what caused my death." If those who blame me could have looked 
into his grief-stricken face and listened to the tones of his voice in the 
great emergencies in which he said there was no refuge for him but in 
death, they would have felt impelled, as I was, to as generous, as open- 
hearted a service as I practised towards him. It would have taken a 
harder heart than mine, being witness of his sorrows, not to forget his 
sins. 

" I have [he writes] a strong feeling upon me, and it brings great 
peace with it, that I am spending my last Sunday, and preaching my 
last sermon." I did, indeed, write to him, "you can stand if the whole 
case were published to morrow." I did believe that, if he had made, .as 
he was advised to make, a full and frank confession of the whole truth, 
as he had done to me, accompanied by such expressions of contrition 
and repentance as he had made to me, his church and the world would 
have forgiven him, and he would have stood. How much more, then, 
must I believe it now, when he can stand before the public preaching 
the gospel of Jesus Christ with all the facts made known, and Lam 
driven by blows and assaults of his people from that which should be 
the house of God, wherein his adulteries and hypocrisies have been con- 
doned by an admiring church ! 

For all this, I would not blame the deceived and worshipping Chris- 
tians of that church, knowing how grossly they have been misled by 
those who have undertaken to exculpate Beecher at all hazards. They 
will at some time know. And when they do, they will pardon the 
strength of my language when I denounced in their presence their orator 
who was addressing them by the name of " liar." He stood before them 
vouching for the innocence of Beecher. and told them that he was the 
only one, besides the lawyers, who knew all the facts. Poor deluded 



500 THE TRUE HISTORY OP 

young man ! When he reads the following letter from Beecher, dated 
December 2, 1873, he will find that Beecher purposely kept him from 
knowing all the facts, and only introduced him to me that he might tell 
to me what was going on in the church. It is as follows, marked " X : " 

BEECHER TO MOULTON. 

__ _ _ Little Falls, N. Y., December 2, 1873. 

My Dear Frank :— I send you two letters for Banfield— to choose 
from,— the one, extended, the other short and crisp. I hope that light 
is not far ahead ; the night passes— the morning comes ! 

I shall hear nothing from home of the progress of my affairs till I 
return. 

I introduced you to young Raymond because he is a personal friend, 
acute, and safe should you need. Of course I have never exchanged a 
word with hiin as I have with you— and he represents me only in church 
action. 

I hope you thought to see Woodruff about the matter I spoke of— 
lending money, etc. 

Would not Robinson, who stands strong in the Society of Pilgrims, 
be able to strike down in some degree the folly, and hold back that folly 
of raniimg headlong after such malignants as Buck, Johnson, etc. ? I 
only suggest. 

Give my love to the mother, and ray earnest hopes that she is rapidly 
recovering. Ever truly yours, H. W. Beecher. 

And when he reads Beecher's letter of February 5, 1872 : " If yon 
[Moulton], too, cease to trust me and love me, I am alone. I have not 
another person in the world to whom I can go ; " and again, in his tes- 
timony, where he says : " For he was the only man on the globe I could 
talk with on this subject; I was shut up to every human being; I could 
not go to my wife ; I could not go to my children, and I could not go to 
my brothers and sisters ; I could not go to my church ; he was the only 
one person to whom I could talk ; and when I got that rebuff from him, 
it seemed as though it would kill me, and the letter was the product of 
that mood into which I was thrown " — will " young Raymond " really 
think that he was ever the confidant of Beecher? He certainly never 
was a confidant of mine, for, measuring him at a glance, I never had an 
interview with him after Beecher introduced him to me. Which will 
Plymouth Church believe, their pastor's statement that Raymond did 
and could know nothing of the facts in this case, or believe young Ray- 
mond when he says he knows all ? 

Nay, even more. Beecher's committee rest his exculpation upon my 
interview with the Rev. Mr. Halliday, in which, in language guarded, 
but intended to mislead that simple, confiding agent of Beecher, his 
assistant, I spoke to him what Beecher desired and instructed me to 
say when even that simple-minded old man's suspicions had been aroused 
by conferences with Tilton and others ; and for that speech, by which 
I admit Halliday was misled, I received from Beecher the following 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 501 

letter, heretofore published, sent me on the Lord's day by a Christian 
minister, giving his thanks for my prevarication in his behalf to his 

assistant : 

Sunday, a. m. 
My Dear Friend: — Halliday called last night. T.'s interview with 
him did not satisfy, but disturbed. It was the same with Bell, who was 
present. It tended directly to unsettling. Your interview last night 
was very beneficial, and gave confidence. This must be looked after. 
It is vain to build if the foundation sinks under every effort. I shall 
see you at 10.30 to-morrow — if you return by way of 49 Remsen. 

It has been held honorable for men who had had amours with a 
reputable woman to deny even under oath those amours, to protect 
from exposure the fair fame and name which had been confided to their 
keeping. Not by any means intending to set up any such standard of 
morality, but which is sustained in Beecher by a portion of the press 
which says he ought to stand by the woman, under how much more 
temptation was I acting when in my charge had been placed, without 
any guilt on my part, the honor of women of fair name and high station, 
the welfare of a church, the upholding of the fame and reputation of the 
foremost preacher of the world, the well-being of Christianity itself, and 
the morals of the community — all, and more, involved in my failure to 
hold the facts concealed from every mortal eye ! The silent " volcano," 
on which he says he was walking, might have been at any time caused 
to burst forth by my imprudent answers to jscandal-loving, Curiously- 
prying men and women, or ministers of the gospel who were engaged 
in endeavoring to find out; and my silence, when their questions were 
put to me, stating supposed facts, would have been at once deemed 
assent. 

But if there was any wrong in my concealment of these facts from the 
world, let Plymouth Church labor with Mr. Bowen, one of its leading 
members, who concealed them from the church, in consideration of the 
publication of his pastor's letters and sermons in the Independent. Let 
Mr. Claflin, Beecher's chosen committeeman, who, presumably, had been 
told the " very bottom facts," be dealt with ; and, indeed let him who is 
without sin among them all in that regard first cast a stone. 

I do not review or animadvert upon the report of the committee, 
because every one has expected the result of its labors from the begin- 
ning. No disclosures were made to them, and they took care not to call 
before them any witnesses who knew the facts except the parties impli- 
cated, and have clearly shown that it was a partizan tribunal, organized 
to acquit — as Beecher confessed to me on the 5th of July last it was. 
By thinking men no weight will be given to its unsupported opinions, 
however speciously argued in a report which is but a rehash of the 
statements of the accused criminals, both written in whole or in part by 
his lawyers. 



502 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

I was quite aware that I was to be struck down in case I did not side 
with Beecher, if " I did not choose between Tilton's statement and 
mine," as he states he asked me to do. My friends put before me the 
consequences of my standing fi rm j n w } iat j ^ new to be t j ie trutn and 
the right ; that I must incur the enmity, as I have felt the assaults, 
of Plymouth Church ; that great financial interests were involved in the 
standing of that church, whereby much gain comes— in money, if from 
nothing else— to some favored members thereof; and I feel that I have 
a right to say that, if I could have been swerved from my sense of duty 
to myself and to justice, every outside inducement urged me to stand 
by " Beecher's statement." Of course I discerned that any statement 
I should make must be ruinous to Mr. Beecher, and if I made it I must 
be taken as siding with the falling cause of my nearly ruined friend, 
Theodore Tilton. And I appeal to the fair judgment of all men ; what 
motive could I have in making myself his ally and the enemy of Mr. 
Beecher, except impelled by integrity of purpose and all that makes up 
the word " duty," to stand by the right as I knew the right to be. 

I have, however, the consolation of knowing that I only suffer as 
everybody else suffers who has dared to say a word for the truth against 
Beecher. Each and all in turn have been assailed by every form of 
obloquy and detraction as the new phases of the case required for the 
exculpation of the accused. First, it was heard through the press that 
the letters which Tilton put in his sworn statement were forgeries, 
when it was supposed that the originals would not be forthcoming. 
Then, Tilton was insane, and a labored analysis of all the maladies of 
his family was paraded before the public to show that he was insane; 
but the " method in his madness " exploded that theory. And then, 
the last refuge was that all that he had done was for the purpose of 
blackmailing Beecher, «and as all that was done was through my hand, 
of course. I must be destroyed, or the new theory of a conspiracy of 
four years' duration would come to naught. Everybody who should 
come forward to say a single word upon the subject unfavorable to the 
accused has received the same treatment. Mr. Carpenter is placarded 
to the world through Beecher's statement as "a kind of genial, good- 
natured fool," and Mr. Beecher's sister, the amiable, intelligent, en- 
thusiastic, and clear-headed Mrs. Hooker, now, happily for her peace, 
abroad, who had become the recipient of the knowledge of the facts 
of Beecher's guilt, was placarded as insane ; and when she had advised 
him to make a clear and full confession, in the interest of truth and jus- 
tice, to rescue a woman from jail whom Mrs. Hooker believed was in- 
carcerated for having told simply the truth, and threatened to disclose 
the truth from his pulpit if Beecher would not, by Beecher's authority, 
and under his advice, conveyed through me with his approbation, Tilton 
went to poor Mrs. Hooker and broached the slander that she, too, was 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 503 

charged with being guilty of adultery from the same source as his wife 
was, and when Mr. Beecher was told that his sister sunk down in tears 
and gave up under such a gross accusation, he chuckled at the success 
of the "device." Whatever "devices" were used to protect Henry- 
Ward Beecher to save himself, it was not one of mine to defile the fair 
fame of his sister. And, until it was ascertained what part she would 
take in the controversy, his wife, Mrs. Beecher herself, was struck at in 
his behalf by his elder brother, Bev. William Beecher, in an interview 
published in a Western paper, from which I extract the following, the 
correctness of which has not been, so far as I know, denied. 

I believe he [Beecher] looks upon the marriage relation as sacredty as 
any one. In fact, I know he has suffered great trouble on account of 
his wife, and has endeavored to be faithful to her, notwithstanding the 
sore trials she has cost him. It has separated him from his kindred, 
from his brothers and sisters, who were prevented from coming to the 
house on her account. Yet he bore with her, and in every way endeav- 
ored to arrange matters so that they might visit him. Still I think she 
loved him and was faithful to him. 

Notwithstanding this, Beecher appeals in his statement to " his happy 
home " as one of the reasons why he could not have been unfaithful to 
his marriage vow. 

Again, it is paraded in the newspapers that Mrs. Beecher produced 
before the committee all Mrs. Tilton's letters, having opened them before 
Beecher had had an opportunity to read them, as she did all of his 
other letters, and this report gains credence from the fact that he wrote 
to Elizabeth after he declares he had stopped all intimacy, as he had 
promised to do, " that she was now permitted to write to him because 
lie was living alone with his sister," and in another letter takes care to 
inform her of the fact that his wife had sailed for Havana and Florida. 
And Mrs. Tilton, too, after having said and unsaid everything in order 
to save Beecher, after having falsified and stultified herself in every pos- 
sible way for his salvation, and so become useless hereafter as a witness 
or " refreshment," only remains in his mind <; under a divided conscious- 
ness " that " she was a saint and chief of sinners." And she is thrown 
aside like a worthless weed in this cruel paragraph of the report of his 
committee : 

It is not for the committee to defend the course of Mrs. Tilton. Her 
conduct upon human responsibility is indefensible. 

All these attacks were before me, and I knew I should not escape, 
and I have not, although all the blessings of heaven were called down 
upon me by Beecher in every note. he ever wrote me. all of which 
breathed the fullest confidence in me up to the 4th of August, nine days 
before he made his statement, wherein he charges me with a most con- 
temptible crime because I refused to give up the papers to him which I 



504 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

knew were my only protection against him ; for I had learned to know 
the selfishness and cruelty of the man who sacrifices all for himself. 

And yet, in view of our relations for the past four years, I can scarcely 
realize the fact that he turned upon me, even when at his request I was 
keeping silent for his sake ; and now, with all that he has put upon me, 
it is with difficulty that I summon sufficient of resolution, in anguish 
of spirit, to enable me to put forth the statement that I am now com- 
pelled to do. For I here aver that I never have made public what was 
the nature of Beecher's offence, or what was the evidence in my posses- 
sion to prove it, until 1 did so in my former statement prepared for the 
committee, although statements were made in the newspapers to that 
effect which may have inflamed the mind of Beecher against me. I had 
pledged my honor to silence except I was attacked, and I have redeemed 
that pledge at whatever violence to my feelings and sense of justice. 
Nor have I ever made public the facts in this subsequent statement, 
until they now appear, and yet there has been a newspaper report pub- 
lishing what purports to be a portion of them, but which was gathered, 
from others and not from me. On the contrary. I have taken every and 
all means that I could to conceal and keep thein out of sight, driven even 
to answer many men who asked me in regard to them in such a way as 
to mislead them without stating to them any absolute falsehood, al- 
though I have no doubt some of them, remembering the impression 
they got from me, thought that 1 have stated to them what has since 
been contradicted by my published statement of what has actually been 
known to me, and the reasons ot which 1 have heretofore explained. 

All the present necessary facts to form a correct judgment of Henry 
Ward Beecher. and my own course and character are now before the 
public, and I submit to the candor and judgment of all good men and 
women whether under all the emergencies in which I have been placed, 
I have not endeavored to do that which seemed to me to be rio-ht and 
proper, faithfully and loyally to those whose interests I had in charge, 
and especially to Beecher himself, pfeading guilty to everything of want 
of judgment and unwisdom in trying to master the almost insurmount- 
able difficulties which surrounded me, which can rightly be imputed 
to me. 

If the true interests of the Christian church are promoted, under the 
light of existing and known facts, by sustaining Beecher, as the foremost 
man in it, it is a matter of concern to Christian people in which my 
judgment will not be consulted But let them remember as they do so 
the teachings of the Master from the Mount : 

" Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not 
commit adultery. 

" But I say unto you, whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, 
hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 505 

" And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee, 
:br it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and 
not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." 

Francis D. Moultox. 

Commenting upon this statement, the New York 
Tribune of September 12 wrote as follows : 

In the insufferably prolix communication to which we re- 
luctantly surrender nearly three pages of the Tribune this morn- 
ing, Mr. Francis D. Moulton presents not one fragment of fresh 
evidence in support of his former charges, and advances hardly 
one new statement. He is by turns defiant and apologetic, 
lachrymose and malicious. Nearly half his address is an 
earnest effort to convince the public that he acted toward Mr. 
Beecher the part of a loyal friend, and halt' the remainder is 
a trivial examination of certain minor discrepancies in Mr. 
Beecher's testimony which in no material way affect the main 
issue. Towards Mr. Hossiter Raymond, and some other de- 
fenders of Mr. Beecher, he betrays a childish animosity, and he 
labors apparently under the delusion that the world at large is 
concerned about the judgments which he and they have formed 
of each other. Throwing aside all this miserable rubbish, we 
can reduce what Mr. Moulton really has to say about the scan- 
dal to a very few points. 1. He gives (from memory) the 
words in which, as he avers, Mr. Beecher confessed to him his 
improper relations with Mrs. Tilton. 2. He asserts that the con- 
fession has been made in the hearing of another person, whose 
name he does not give, but it is not Tilton. 3. He reproduces 
the letters which passed between Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton, 
after the alleged confession — the snme letters which were given 
to the correspondent of the Chicago Tribune and copied into 
this paper. 4. And finally he declares that Mr. Beecher con- 
fessed to him that he had committed adultery with another 
woman, mentioned though not by name in Tilton \s threatening 
letter to Mr. Bowen. The first and second allegations rest upon 
Mr. Moulton's unsupported word, and we have no hesitation in 
saying that the language which he puts into Mr. Beecher's 



500 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

mouth is impossible. He represents this Christian preacher as 
not only acknowledging his adultery but declaring that "God 
would not blame him for it." That overtaxes credulity. 
The third point refers to the so-called clandestine letters. They 
are not evidences of guilt. Far from it. We challenge any 
unprejudiced person to read them without being impressed by 
their deep religious spirit; and if we are to take them for letters 
of assignation we must suppose that this man and woman were 
in the habit of saying grace over their sinful indulgences and 
mingling all their crimes with prayer — not in hypocritical pre- 
tence before the world, but in the secrecy of their own guilty 
intercourse. In the malignant earnestness with which Moulton 
tries to twist an evil significance out of these innocent, albeit 
gushing sentences, there is something of the devil's own temper. 

The fourth point also depends principally upon Mr. Moulton's 
credibility. But here he brings forward a solitary scrap of 
what he considers documentary corroboration. In the letter 
from Tilton to Bowen there was a reference to an alleged crime 
of ravishment. From the lady concerned in this story a letter 
is printed which Mr. Moulton would have us believe refers to 
Mr. Beecher's crime. Now we know the particulars of this 
case. We know the incidents of the trivial quarrel to which 
the letter does relate. We know Mr. Moulton's charge to be 
an atrocious calumny without a shadow of justification ; and 
at the proper day the truth will be established by indisputable 
evidence. 

But we shall not waste time and temper in analyzing a 
statement which will damn Francis D. Moulton deeper than 
any revelation of baseness and treachery that has been made by 
Mr. Beecher or his friends. It is about such a document as 
one might expect from the man who allows his friend to make 
merchandise of his wife's honor, and acts as a broker in the 
transaction — brutal, cruel, cowardly, infamous. Because his 
actions have been misconstrued forsooth, this Bayard of Brook- 
lyn must save his reputation for generosity by blasting the 
homes in which he has been a favored guest, pulling out the 
private letters committed to his honorable keeping, showing the 



THE BKOOKLYN SCANDAL. 507 

world what ugly things brothers and sisters could say of one 
another, what sentimental phrases wives could write in the ab- 
sence of their husbands, and dragging the reputation of ladies 
whom he has never known and the happiness of families which 
have never wronged him through the reeking filth of this un- 
paralleled scandal. It would not have been considered nice 
business for a gentleman in olden times ; but we suppose it is all 
right in these days when a husband undertakes to prove that he 
is not a dog by showing that he is a cuckold. 

It is time for this abominable business to be stopped. The 
accusers have failed in their case, and every fresh attempt to 
accomplish their purpose only makes their failure more disas- 
trous. The word of Henry Ward Beecher stands good against 
a ten-acre lot full of Moultons and Tiltons. The world will 
tolerate no more of their passionate and unsupported assertions. 
If they have any proof of what they allege against the pastor 
of Plymouth Church, let them take it into a court of justice 
where it can be weighed and sifted. A suit at law may enable 
them to destroy the character of Mr. Beecher, though nothing 
will ever mend their own. 



XXXII. 

MR. MOULTON SUED FOR LIBEL. 

The immediate result of the publication of Mr. Moul- 
ton's statement was the commencement, by the lady 
against whom his infamous charge in the paragraph 
we have suppressed was made, of an action for libel. 
The New York Tribune thus states the reasons which 
led her to take this step, in which she has the sympathy 
of all good citizens : 

Gen. Benjamin F. Tracy, of the firm of Tracy, Catlin & 
Brodhead, announced yesterday that he had been authorized by 
Miss Edna Dean Proctor, who resides in Massachusetts, to 
begin a suit against Francis D. Moulton for malicious libel. 



508 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

She accuses him of publishing a letter of hers in his recent 
statement, and maliciously charging that it related to the com- 
mission of a crime with the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, thereby 
injuring her reputation for virtue and honor, and damaging her 
to the extent of §100,000. She charges that the statement was 
untrue, that she had never committed the crime; that the 
charges against her which purported to have been made by the 
Rev. Mr. Beecher to Mr. Moulton in the latter's statement 
were invented by Mr. Moulton, or known by him to be false 
in every particular. Wherefore she prays that he be dealt with 
according to law. Mr. Brodhead has been engaged upon the 
summons and complaint for several days past, but up to a late 
hour last night had not completed them, so that they will not 
be served until to-day. They will contain, however, three 
charges. The suit will be begun in the United States District 
Court of Brooklyn, as the plaintiff is living in Massachusetts, 
and the defendant in New York, and as that court only will 
have jurisdiction. The ordinary form of an order of arrest will 
be issued, and be handed to Marshal Harlowe for service, al- 
though it is not intended to have Mr. Moulton placed in con- 
finement, as he is possessed of a large amount of property, and 
it is not believed would run away. The papers in the case will 
be filed in the District Court to-day before Judge Benedict, 
who will inform Mr. Moulton, through the marshal, that he 
must come before him and give bonds. The subject of indict- 
ing Mr. Moulton has also been broached to the Acting District- 
Attorney, and so many persons have made application to go 
before the Grand Jury of Kings county and make complaints 
against Mr. Moulton for malicious libel, that the officials have 
concluded to permit them to make their complaints. 

There have been no efforts on the part of the Assistant Dis- 
trict-Attorneys to open this case, because they wished to avoid 
any appearance of being influenced by any personal feeling from 
their connection with District- Attorney Winslow, who was one 
of the Committee of Investigation to examine the charges 
against Mr. Beecher. They state that if the case is brought to 
the attention of the Grand Jury it will be because their duty to 



THE BROOKLYN SCAKDAL. 509 

the people would not permit them to refuse the applications of 
persons who desire to make charges against Mr. Moulton. 
They add that they have held no consultation with Mr. Wins- 
low on the subject, and that he has turned all matters relating 
to that subject over to them. It was stated, however, that the 
indictment proceedings might be taken to the United States 
Grand Jury on the complaint of some friends of Miss Proctor 
and of Mr. Beecher. It was esteemed better to make the com- 
plaint before that body, as it not only has jurisdiction in the 
case, but its members could not be charged with being influenced 
in forming an indictment by the advice of District-Attorney 
Winslow. The offence is a misdemeanor according to the laws 
of the United States, and is made punishable by fine, imprison- 
ment or both, and the fact of publication is prima facie evidence 
of malice, but General Tracy, while explaining the true story 
of the letter of Miss Proctor, said that in the case of Mr. Moul- 
ton it could easily be shown that his statement was shamefully 
malicious, as he knew before he published the letter that it 
related simply to a business transaction. This fact, Mr. Tracy 
added, was brought directly and prominently to Moulton's 
notice by Miss Proctor's friends, who were familiar with all the 
facts, when they learned that he contemplated making use of 
the letter in his statement. The suit will be pressed to trial 
immediately. 

The circumstances of the controversy between Mr. Beecher 
and Edna Dean Proctor, which gave rise to her letter to Mr. 
Beecher in 1871, have long been well understood by the friends 
of both, and as stated by them appear now of very trifling im- 
portance, and are wholly of a private character. They attract 
public interest through the forced construction which Mr. 
Moulton saw fit to give to Miss Proctor's letter. As long ago 
as 1858 Miss Proctor was residing in Brooklyn in the family 
of Henry C. Bowen. While listening from Sunday to Sunday 
to Mr. Beecher's sermons she took down brief extracts which 
she thought of striking interest. Having accumulated a large 
number of these extracts she consulted with Mr. Beecher with 
regard to publishing them in the form of a book. He was 



510 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

pleased with her plan and readily consented to her making 
every advantage from it that she might be able. It was under- 
stood, however, that the length of the extracts should be limited 
to about ten lines. The book was published with the title of 
" Life Thoughts," and proved to be a splendid hit; many editions 
were sold in a short time, and Miss Proctor is said to have 
realized several thousand dollars, to the great pleasure of Mr. 
Beecher, who was glad to have her prepare another volume. 
While collecting materials for the second book, one of a similar 
character was announced collated by Augusta Moore. The 
approval of Mr. Beecher was claimed for this book by the pub- 
lishers. It was composed of somewhat longer extracts than the 
former. When this was announced Miss Proctor knew of it 
for the first time, and as she was nearly ready to have her sec- 
ond volume issued, was much disturbed. Her friends were 
likewise very indignant against Mr. Beecher, and neither she 
nor they were slow to express their disapproval of what Mr. 
Beecher had done by recommending as they supposed the vol- 
ume of Augusta Moore. The result was that Mr. Beecher 
addressed to her a long letter explanatory of all the circum- 
stances. He assured her, it is said, that he had prevented the 
publication for a time, and had consented to it only after vari- 
ous reasons had been presented. Mr. Beecher's letter somewhat 
appeased Miss Proctor, but she concluded not to publish the 
second volume. The letter which Mr. Moulton included in 
his statement was written in 1871, and had reference, it is 
claimed, wholly to this difficulty, occurring many years before. 
While trouble was brewing between him and Mr. Bowen and 
Mr. Til ton, Mr. Beecher gave this note among other corre- 
spondence into Mr. Moulton 's keeping. 

On the 26th of September, 1874, the Grand Jury 
of Kings county, New York, framed an indictment of 
Mr. Moulton, based upon the charges of Miss Proctor. 
Says the Tribune of the 29th : 

" He is charged with having ' wickedly and maliciously ' 
libelled Miss Edna Dean Proctor. Two indictments were 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 511 

found against him, and the alleged libels appear in his last 
statement. In that document Mr. Moulton charges the Rev. 
Hemy AVard Beecher with having committed a gross outrage 
upon a woman, whose name he failed to give to the public, 
although he produced a letter which he claimed was signed by 
her. Miss Proctor believes that she was the one referred to. 
So believing, she instituted through her counsel a. suit for 
damages against Moulton, and brought the matter before the 
Grand Jury on Thursday of last week. The first indictment 
against Moulton is for the charge that Miss Proctor had illicit 
intercourse with the Rev. Henry ^Yard Beecher. The second 
indictment is based on the charge that the Rev. Henry Ward 
Beecher ravished Miss Proctor. Moulton was officially in- 
formed by District- Attorney Winslow yesterday morning that 
he must appear and give bail pending trial before the Court 
of Sessions. Soon after receiving this notification Moulton 
appeared at the office of the District- Attorney. Mr. W.inslow 
was not present. The accused was informed that he would 
be required to give bail in §20,000, and that he would have 
to furnish two bondsmen, each of whom must justify for 
$20,000. Mr. Moulton said that he would like to consult 
with counsel, and thereupon he was allowed to depart, with 
the understanding that he would give bail to-day or to-mor- 
row. He immediately proceeded with Theodore Tilton to the 
latter's residence, where ex- Judge Morris was waiting. Upon 
their informing Mr. Morris of what had taken place he said 
that the bail required was too heavy. He stated that in the 
course of nine years' experience as District- Attorney he had 
never known a case of misdemeanor in which more than 
§5000 bail was asked. Moulton replied that if the amount 
required w T ere oppressive he would ask for a reduction. He 
then left the house for the purpose of consulting with his 
• counsel, and there is no doubt that application will be made to 
have the bail reduced.* Annexed will be found a copy of the 
indictments: 

* Mr. Moulton's bail was subsequently reduced to $3000. 



512 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

THE INDICTMENTS. 

State of New York, County of Kings, ss. : 

The Jurors of the people of the State of New York in and for the body 
of the county of Kings, upon their oath present that Edna Dean Proctor, 
now or lately of South Framingham, in the Commonwealth of Massachu- 
setts, is and was at the times hereinafter mentioned, and at the time of the 
composing, writing, printing and publishing the false, scandalous, mali- 
cious, and defamatory libels hereinafter mentioned, an unmarried woman 
of pure and chaste character, and a person of good name, fame, credit, 
and reputation ; and as such was esteemed and respected by and among 
all good and worthy citizens of the State of New York and of the Com- 
monwealth of Massachusetts to whom she was in anywise known. 

And the Jurors aforesaid upon their oaths do further present, that 
one Francis D. Moulton, now or lately of the city of Brooklyn, county 
of Kings, well knowing the premises, then and there unjustly and unlaw- 
fully and maliciously, devising, contriving and intending as much as in 
the said Francis I). Moulton lay to defame, asperse, scandalize and villify 
the character of the said Edna Dean Proctor, and to insinuate and cause 
it to be published that the said Edna Dean Proctor was a woman of 
impure and unchaste character, and that the said Edna Dean Proctor 
had been guilty of gross and immoral conduct, and had had, previous to 
the time of the same malicious publication, sexual intercourse with the 
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher ; and to provoke her and her friends to com- 
mit a breach of the peace, did, on or about September 11, 1874, at the 
city and county of New York, unlawfully and maliciously, wickedly 
and scandalously conspire, write, print and publish, and did cause, and 
procure to be composed, written, printed and published as aforesaid in a 
certain public newspaper of large circulation in the county of Kings, 
and elsewhere, entitled The Daily Graphic, the certain false, wicked, 
malicious and scandalous libel of and concerning the said Edna Dean 
Proctor. 

[Here follows an extract from Moulton's statement upon 
which the suit is based. It contains an account of an alleged 
interview between Moulton and Mr. Beecher in reference to a 
woman not named, and a copy of a retraction which Moulton 
states was procured by Mr. Beecher.] 

That the three marks at the foot of the said letter (the letter of 
retraction) were designed and understood by the friends of the said 
Edna Dean Proctor to represent that her name was subscribed to the 
foregoing letter. 

That the said Edna Dean Proctor was the writer thereof, and which 
*Hct was then and there known to him, the said Francis D. Moulton. and 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 513 

to many persons who read said false and defamatory article. "This 
document shows that Mr. Beecher was not as successful in this retrac- 
tion, which he evidently did not dictate, as in the case of Mrs. Tilton ; 
and the retraction itself, in its cautious wording, was so much more 
damaging as evidence than a direct charge of the woman that might be 
contradicted would be, that it was thought best that it should not see 
the light of day, and it lias not until now. 

"The question was, Did he ravish this person? He admitted to me 
the connection, but insisted that he used no force, only dalliance. That 
accusation had been repeated by Bowen, and the best Mr. Beecher 
could get from her was that she had "told Bowen things injurious' to 
Beecher; that she 'always speaks strongly,' and was 'nearly beside 
herself and used unmeasured terms, which represented rather my feeling 
than my judgment.' 

"But what was desired to get denied was the fact itself, and that fact 
the criminal connection, which was neither matter of 'feeling' nor 
'judgment' in the sense in which the words are used in the retraction. 
But whether done by force or dalliance is a question of both feeling and 
judgment, and so much is retracted ; and knowing the relations between 
this woman and Beecher to have been not only ' cordial and friendly,' 
but thereafterward very intimate, I gave credit to this version of his 
intercourse, and particularly because Mr. Beecher, to confirm his state- 
ment that he had not ravished her, brought to me several letters from 
her to him, which I still hold, showing the continuance of friendly rela- 
tions with her. I do not give the lady's name, and withhold the photo- 
lithograph of her letter, because I do not wish needlessly to involve a 
reputation which has thus far escaped public mention by any of the 
parties to this controversy. If the facts stated here should identify the 
person concerned with him. and if those who are interested in her feel 
aggrieved, let them avenge that grief, if upon any one, upon the pastor 
of Plymouth Church, and not upon me, as I have been threatened it 
would be if I ventured to state the facts of Beecher's guilt in this case." 

The said Francis D. Moulton then and there, meaning to charge that 
the said Edna Dean Proctor, who was the writer of said letter,, dated 
January 10, 1871, was the woman concerning whom said communica- 
tions and impressions were made, and that said false, scandalous, libel- 
ous, and defamatory matter which said Francis D. Moulton alleged was 
committed and confessed to him by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, was 
as a matter of fact true. And so the jurors aforesaid, on their oaths 
aforesaid, do say that he. the said Francis D. Moulton, in the manner 
and form aforesaid, did unjustly, maliciously and unlawfully write, print, 
utter and publish as aforesaid the false, scandalous, malicious matters 
as aforesaid, well knowing the said defamatory libel to be false, to the 
great injury, scandal and disgrace of her, the said Edna Dean Proctor, 
33 



514 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

and against the form and statute in such case made and provided, and 
against the people of the Ptate of New York and their dignity. 

And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do further pre- 
sent that the said Francis D. Moulton, well knowing the premises, 
unlawfully and unjustly and maliciously devising, contriving and intend- 
ing as much as the said Francis D. Moulton lay, to defame, asperse, 
scandalize, and vilify the character of the said Edna Dean Proctor, and 
to insinuate and cause it to be believed that the said Edna Dean Proc- 
tor had been carnally known and ravished by the Rev. Henry Ward 
Beecher, and to provoke her and her friends to commit a breach of the 
peace, did, on or about September 11, 1874, in the city and county of 
New York aforesaid, unlawfully, maliciously, and wickedly and scan- 
dalously compose, write, print and publish, and did cause and procure to 
be composed, written, printed and published, as aforesaid, in a certain 
public newspaper, having a large circulation in the county of Kings, 
and elsewhere, entitled The Daily Graphic, the certain falae, wicked, 
malicious and scandalous libel of and concerning the said Edna Dean 
Proctor, which said wicked, mischievous and scandalous libel, which the 
said Francis D. Moulton, so intending and contriving as aforesaid, did on 
or about the day and year last aforesaid, also maliciously and unlawfully 
utter and publish and did cause and procure to be so uttered and pub- 
lished in the city of Brooklyn, aforesaid, is to be the tenor and effect as 
follows, that is to say : 

[The extract from Moulton's statement, which appears above, 
is reinserted here.] 

The said Francis 1). Moulton then and there meaning to charge that 
the said Edna Dean Proctor, who was the writer of said letter, dated 
January 10, 1871, and that she was the woman concerning whom said 
communications and confessions were made, and that said false, scanda- 
lous, libellous, and defamatory matter which said Francis D. Moulton 
alleged was communicated and confessed to him by the Rev. Henry 
Ward Beecher, was, as a matter of fact, true. 

And so the jurors aforesaid do say that he, the said Francis D. Moul- 
ton, in the manner and form aforesaid, did unjustly, maliciously, and 
unlawfully write, print, utter, and publish, as aforesaid, the false, scan- 
dalous, malicious matters as aforesaid, well knowing the said defamatory 
libel to be false, to the great injury, scandal, and disgrace of her the said 
Kdna Dean Proctor, and against the form of the statute in such case 
made and provided, and against the peace of the people of the State of 
New York, and their dignity. John Winslow. District-Attorney. 

Miss Proctor has notified to her counsel to bring a suit 
against the New York Daily Graphic, which published the 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 515 

statement of Mr. Moulton containing her letter to Mr. Beecher, 
upon which she alleges he maliciously put a false construction. 
One of her counsel says that it is an aggravated case because, 
as he is informed, the Graphic knew all the circumstances 
under which Miss Proctor s^nt the letter to Mr. Beecher, and 
was well aware that it had no reference to any such act as was 
charged against her and Mr. Beecher. Her counsel assert that 
the publication at any rate is grossly libellous, that it maliciously 
injured their client. The suit will be brought in the United 
States Court in this city, and the summons and complaint be 
served to-day. As the Graphic Company is a corporation, no 
order of arrest will be issued. The damages claimed are 
$100,000, and the suit will be pushed without delay. 



XXXIII. 

THEODORE TILTON'S LAST STATEMENT. 

In reply to the charges against him in Mr. Beecher's defence 
and cross-examination, Mr. Tilton, on the 18th of September, 
published the following statement : 

Throughout the country, if I rightly interpret the public press, a 
majority of candid minds admit the truth of my indictment against the 
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. But many fair-minded persons, animated 
by a charitable doubt, have asked me for some further confirmation of 
the one chief allegation in this controversy. My sworn statement, pub- 
lished in the Brooklyn Argus of July 20, was not written for publication, 
otherwise I would have cited in it a greater number of facts and proofs. 
The only use which I designed for that statement was simply to read it 
to the Investigating Committee, before whom I expected to confirm its 
charges by such additional testimony as the investigators (if such they 
could be called) should require. But the committee, consisting of six 
trusted friends of the accused, appointed by him for the sole purpose, 
not of discovering his guilt, but of pronouncing his acquittal, resented 
my accusation against their popular favorite, and, to punish me for 
making it, converted their tribunal into a star chamber for trying, not 
him, but me. The questions which they asked me were mostly irrele- 
vant to the case, and the only part of my testimony that bore directly 
on Mr. Beecher's adultery they cancelled from their report of my exam- 



516 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

ination. One of the committee's attorneys said tome, "If Mr. Beecher 
is guilty, I prefer not to know it." The whole committee acted on this 
predetermined plan. The chief witnesses who could testify against Mr. 
Beecher — notably Francis D. Moulton, Joseph H. Richards, Martha B. 
Bradshaw, Susan B. Anthony, Francis B. Carpenter, Emma R. Moulton, 
Henry C. Bowen, Thomas Kinsella, and others — were either not willing 
to testify, or their testimony was set aside as not being officially before 
a tribunal that did not wish to receive it. 

Accordingly, my indictment against Mr. Beecher was left by the 
committee to stand without other proof than that which my statement 
of July 20 afforded, unassisted by other witnesses. When the commit- 
tee asked me if the statement contained my whole case, 1 answered no ; 
for it was simply a succinct narrative, giving only such dates and docu- 
ments as I thought sufficient for the committee's private inquiry, and 
yet more than sufficient to put an impartial committee on the right road 
to the whole truth. Since the date of its publication several counter- 
statements have appeared, including Mr. Beecher's denial, closely fol- 
lowed by Mrs. Tilton's — both of which were untrue ; then by the 
committee's numerous publications of one-sided testimony, and last of 
all by a verdict based solely on these untruthful denials, to the neglect 
of all the positive allegations on the other side ; so that the committee 
accepted the silly fictions of Bessie Turner, but rejected the serious facts 
of Mr. Moulton, nor did they even invite Mr. Bowen to appear before 
them ; all which unfair proceedings and uncandid publications require of 
me, for the sake of some hesitant minds, a reply which the larger por- 
tion of the community have already made for themselves. I therefore 
submit the following facts and evidences, arranged as far as convenient 
in chronological order, and making a narrative which, as it progresses 
etep by step, will aim to correct and counteract, one by one, the untrue 
denials of Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton, and the unjust deductions of the 
committee. 

I. I will begin by showing the kindly nature of my personal relations 
with the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher down to July 3. 1870, the date of 
Mrs. Tilton's confession of their criminal intimacy; disproving by 
authentic documents the charge that I was animated towards him by 
vindictiveness or any other hostile feeling. 

First. During his absence in England, Mr. Beecher sent tome, under 
date of Sunday, October 18, 1863, the long and memorable letter which 
Mrs. Stowe afterwards incorporated in her biography of him. In this 
letter he says : 

"My Drar Theodore: — .... Should I die on sea or land, I 
wanted to say to you who have been so near and dear to me," etc. 

The single phrase which I have italicised is sufficient to show that 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 517 

Mr. Beecher, while travelling in a foreign land, having left behind him a 
greater multitude of friends than most men could have claimed, and 
seeking to choose from all these one to be the custodian of his special 
and secret thoughts, chose me. And his affectionate reason for so doing 
is stated by himself to be that I was " near and dear to him.* 1 

Second. Two years later, on the arising of political differences between 
Mr. Beecher and me, resulting in my publicly criticising his course, I 
addressed to him a private letter, November 30, 1865, containing my 
heartfelt assurances that these differences did not becloud my love for 
him. In this letter I said : 

" If I should die leaving you alive, T ask you to love my children for 
their father's sake, who has taught them to reverence you and to regard 
you, as the man of men." 

The above tribute derives the greater force because I paid it to Mr. 
Beecher when we were at political variance and in public antagonism. 

Third. Three years later he sent me a gift copy of " Norwood," in- 
scribed by his own hand with the following affectionate words: 

To 

Theodore Tilton — 

who greatly encouraged the author to begin and persevere — with 

the affectionate regards of 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

March 18, 1868. 

I distinctly recall several warm allusions which Mr. Beecher, in con- 
versations with me at that period, made to the good cheer with which 
he said I inspired him during the composition of that book. 

Fourth. A year later such was the respect in which I held Mr. 
Beecher that I spent more money than I could afford in order to possess 
his portrait, painted by the first artist of our day. The following money 
receipt will speak for itself: 

Received from Theodore Tilton. by draft from Aurora. Illinois, 
dated February 25, 1869. five hundred dollars, being payment in full for 
portrait of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Wm. Page. 

April 1, 1869. [Stamp cancelled.] 

Mr. Beecher acknowledges that he sat fifty times for this portrait at 
my request — a fact which puts to flight the charge that either he or 
Mrs. Tilton regarded me as his enemy, or as anything but his admiring 
friend. 

Fifth. In the winter of 1869-70 I published a volume called " Sanctum 
Sanctorum." which contained numerous affectionate references to Mr. 
Beecher. of which the following, taken from an editorial of mine in the 
Independent, is a sufficient specimen — one of many: 

" With grateful pride we look back to our joint connection with that 
good man in this journal as a golden period in our life and labor." 



518 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Such words as the above are the unmistakable tribute of a friend 
to a friend. 

Sixth. Coming down still later, I received from William Lloyd Gar- 
rison a letter dated Roxbury, April 6, 1870, from which I quote the 
following lines : 

" You say of Mr. Beecher that he would honor the presidency of 
any society." 

This brief extract shows that I not only honored Mr. Beecher myself, 
but sought to make my friends honor him likewise. 

Seventh. On the 11th of May, 1870, a public and fraternal correspond- 
ence passed between Mr. Beecher and me in our capacity as presidents 
of two suffrage societies holding their public meetings simultaneously 
in New York, and I still possess his autograph letter sent to me on that 
kindly occasion. 

I have given the above brief extracts (which I might multiply) to 
show the uniform friendliness of my feeling towards Mr. Beecher down 
to the time when the discovery was made to me of his fatal assaults on 
the honor of my house. These evidences disprove Mrs. Tilton's extra- 
ordinary and fictitious charge, wherein — speaking of what she calls " the 
last ten years/' " whose stings and pains she daily schooled herself to 
bury and forgive," — she said that one of these " stings and pains " was 
the fact that her husband made an "almost daily threat that he lived 
to crush out Mr. Beecher; that he [Mr. T.] had always been Mr. 
Beecher's superior, and that all that lay in his path — wife, children, and 
reputation if need be— should fall before this purpose." This charge 
by Mrs. Tilton of maNce on my part towards Mr. Beecher was a pure 
invention. She might with equal truth have accused me of entertain- 
ing during the same period a secret and daily hostility towards Horace 
Greeley or Charles Sumner. The committee accepting Mrs. Tilton's 
false statement, incorporated it into their verdict, and thereby falsely 
charge me with exhibiting towards Mr. Beecher what they called 
"a heated and malicious mind," an accusation which has never been 
true of me towards any human being, and which even at the present 
hour is not true of me towards the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. In so 
far, therefore, as the committee's verdict bases itself on this supposed 
fact— which is not a fact but a falsehood— the report for lack of founda- 
tion falls to the ground. 

II. I ought next to show, by similar documentary evidences, the har- 
mony and affection existing between Mrs. Tilton and myself to July 3, 
1870. But this argument has been so fully made by the publication of 
the voluminous private correspondence between myself and wife, filling 
several pages of the Chicago Tribune, of August 13, 1874, that I need 
here only point to that great sheaf of letters, and to pluck merely a few 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 519 

straws from them — just enough to remind the reader of their general 
scope and tone : 

MRS. TILTON TO HER HUSBAND. 

April 16, 1866. — " I know not how I could live without your precious 
daily letter." 

December 28, 1866. — " Above all you rise grandest, highest, best." 

January 7, 1867. — " What a delicious way you have of rebuking and 
teaching me — pretending always that you think I am the loveliest and 
best of little wives." 

January 11, 1867. — "When I look at you I say: 'Yes, my soul is sat- 
isfied — our union is perfect.' " 

January 20, 1867.—" Your letter expressing great patience toward me 
in reference to my finances came yesterday, and I thank you with all 
my heart ; you are magnanimous and generous beyond all men." 

February 5, 1867. — "The inspiration of my daily life now is the 
thought of looking upon your dear face again." 

February 11, 1867. — " God bless you for the confession of your perfect 
love for me." 

February 1. 1868. — "The supreme place is yours forever." 

February 7, 1868. — "Oh. you are truly and nobly loved in your 
home." 

February 18, 1868. — "The idea of a faithful, true marriage will be 
lost out of the world — certainly out of the literary and refined world — 
unless we revive it." 

March 15, 1868. — " If the thought of seeing you is so delicious, what 
will be the reality f " 

February 4. 1869. — " My darling. I must believe that this beautiful 
home which you have made for us must have given you a greater 
amount of satisfaction tlTan we generally secure from earthly labors." 

February 7, 1869. — " I consecrate myself to you so long as I shall 
live." 

February 11, 1869. — "You will find a worn and weary woman thor- 
oughly satisfied when once again she may rest in your bosom." 

February 28, 1869. — "Among the terrible changes of many hearths 
God has kept us steadfast with a glowing love, admiration and respect 
for each other." 

March. 20, 1869. — "I am nearly beside myself thinking that in one 
week I am yours and you are mine again." 

August 18, 1869. — "I have taken your sentence in large letters, ' With 
Love Unbounded,' and hung it over my mantel-piece." 

January 3, 1870. — "-I am in a neat little hotel where the hostess reads 
the Independent, and wishes more to see its editor than any other living 
man. Such a sentiment from this simple-hearted woman was like wine 
to my tired body and soul.'' 

MR. TILTON (DURING THE SAME TIME) TO HIS WIFE. 

January 9, 1865. — " My sweet love, I begin to see. as never before, that 
the centre of the world, to an honorable man. is his own family, his wile's 
sitting-room, his children's play-places, his home." 

October 25. 1865. — " Nothing is more deeply rooted in my conviction 
than that I owe more to your pure love and wifely example than to all 
the world beside." 



520 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

March 28, 1866. — "But whichever wind blows, I find in a little while 
that you, my dearest, are my sheet anchor." 

December 6. 1866. — ''If you should ever appear to me anything less 
than the ideal woman — the Christian saint that I know you to be — I 
shall not care to live a day longer." 

December 12, 1866. — "'More and more you grow into the picture of 
the perfect wife." 

December 14, 1866. — "I see you as the noblest of women." 

December 18, 1866. — "I believe that if you were not on the earth, but 
in heaven, I could not help writing to you a letter every day." 

January 3, 1867. — " If we should have achieved nothing besides a per- 
fect union of two loving hearts, we shall have wrought out for ourselves 
a heaven on earth, and perhaps afterwards the heaven above the earth." 

January 21, 1807. — ''Not a day passes over my head but I have some 
rare, high and beautiful transfiguration of yourself before my soul, by 
which I see an image that fills me with love, reverence and humility." 

February 15, 1867. — "I count your love for me as the chief reward 
and pleasure of my life." 

January 10, 1868.—" I think sometimes that I have the sweetest family 
that God ever gave to a man." 

March 13, 1868. — " Every letter which you have sent has been like a 
buoy under me, helping me to swim in a sea of troubles." 

March 4, 1869. — " My chief title to self-respect is that I have won and 
kept the unblemished love of the best and truest woman whom I have 
ever known." 

January 30, 1870. — "1 shall feel like a sailor tossed on the sea until I 
get to my final haven of rest in my own house — there is but one home." 

April 6, 1870. — "Accept my undivided and ever-growing love, and 
kiss the children for their father's sake." 

Let it be borne in mind that the above correspondence between Mrs. 
Til ton and myself covers 1he long period which her testimony assigns 
to my feigned ill-treatment of her — namely, " the ten years of sorrow, 
rilled with stings and pains," including my alleged locking her in a room 
for days together, and depriving her of food and lire ! 

To throw aside light on the happy domestic relations which the above 
correspondence portrays, I will here add a brief letter, without year, 
received by me while on my lecturing travels from my then office- 
associate in the Independent and Mr. Beecher's present editor of the 
Christian Union: 

OLIVER JOHNSON TO THEODORE TILTON. 

Independent Office, December 12. 
My Dear Theodore: — I wonder what you would give for a chance to 
kiss the little woman who, only an hour since, kissed me ! 

Ah. my dear fellow, it is a great sacrifice you make in leaving such a 
home as yours. 

I was delighted this morning on receiving a visit from your wife, and 
hearing her say what beautiful love-letters she gets from you. She 
seemed well, and smiled on me through her tears as she spoke of you 

and the long season of separation that is before you 

Yours lovingly, Oliver Johnson. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 521 

Mr. Beecher himself strikes a similar blow at Mrs. Tilton's pretence 
of my ill-treatment of her : 

" She seemed to me [Mr. Beecher says] an affectionate and devoted 
wife, looking up to her husband as one far above the common race of 
men." 

Mrs. Tilton's charge of ill-treatment is already so universally discred- 
ited that I need not answer it further. Nevertheless, I take a just pride 
in mentioning that my venerated mother, who recently made a journey 
from her country home to visit me in Brooklyn, did me the sweet honor 
to declare that both she and my father, in lately looking back over my 
nearly forty years of life, were unable to recollect that I ever spoke to 
either of my parents a single harsh word, whether as child, youth, or 
man. My own children could testify that never one of them has re- 
ceived from me a solitary stroke from whip or rod, nor ever once a blow 
of the hand in corporal punishment. I have had offers from some of my 
past associates both in the Independent and the Golden Age to testify 
that during the years of my daily association with them they never once 
saw me in anger. Many of the former inmates of my house, including rel- 
atives, friends, and domestics, stand ready to testify to my uniform gen- 
tleness towards Mrs. Tilton and towards all other persons in my home. 
As God is ray witness, I solemnly aver that I never laid my hand on my 
wife save in the way of caress, nor did I ever threaten her with violence, 
nor subject her to privation. Furthermore, she has at all times pos- 
sessed herself of all my means and resources, it being well known to my 
family that my earnings were spent always for the beautifying of my 
home, and never for purposes in which my wife and children had not an 
equal share with myself. 

I will insert here the following extract from a written statement 
signed jointly by my father and mother : 

Ketport, N. J.. August 30, 1874. 
. . . Also we further testify that we never heard of any ill-feeling be- 
tween our son Theodore and his wife, nor any complaint of ill-treatment 
by him towards her. until we lately heard of it for the first time in Eliza- 
beth's published testimony, which we believe to be untrue. 

(Signed) Silas Tilton. 

Euselia Tilton. 

III. Having thus (in section I) disposed of my alleged vindictiveness 
towards Mr. Beecher, and (in section II) of my imaginary brutality to- 
ward Mrs. Tilton, I now come to Mrs. Tilton's confession. July 3. 1870, 
wherein she narrated the story of her seduction by her pastor, the Kev. 
Henry Ward Beecher. It is a requirement of truth that I should state 
explicitly the circumstances out of which this confession sprang, and 
the substance of the confession itself. 

During several weeks previous to July 3, 1870, Mrs. Tilton had been 



522 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

in the country, having gone thither in a spirit of alienation. I had re- 
cently detected in her, to my grief, a tendency to deceit and falsehood 
foreign to her normal and pure nature. Accordingly a cloud was on her 
spirit at parting. But I neither knew nor suspected that her depression 
had its root in her relations with Mr. Beecher. 

During her absence I wrote to her that she would forfeit my respect 
the moment she ceased to tell the truth — a letter which she afterwards 
reminded me of, saying that " it had pierced her very soul." 

After her absence had been prolonged for several weeks, during which 
only a slight correspondence passed between us, she came unexpectedly 
to Brooklyn, reaching home about nine o'clock in the evening of July 3. 
I expressed my surprise at seeing her, greeted her with cordiality, and 
marked her improved health and rosy look. 

Within an hour after her arrival, sitting in her favorite chamber, 
wherein her infant son Paul had died two years before, she made a ten- 
der allusion to his death, and then said that she had come to tell me a 
secret which she had long kept in her heart in connection with that 
event — a secret which she had several months before, while on a sick- 
bed, resolved to tell me, but lacked the courage. Since then the tone 
of her mind, she said, had improved with her health, and, having prayed 
for strength to tell me the truth without fear, she had now come on pur- 
pose to clear her mind of a burden which, if longer concealed, she felt 
would by and by grow too great for her to boar. 

What the secret was which she was about to disclose I could not con- 
jecture. 

Before disclosing it she exacted from me a solemn pledge that. I would 
not injure the person of whom she was about to speak, nor communicate 
to him the fact of her making such a revelation, for she wanted to in- 
form him in her own way that she had divulged to me the facts in the 
case. 

After exacting these conditions, to which I pledged myself, she nar- 
rated with modesty and diffidence, yet without shamefacedness or sense 
of guilt, a detailed history of her long acquaintance with Mr. Beecher — 
of a growing friendship between them — of a passionate fondness which 
he at length began to exhibit towards her — of the inadequacy of his 
home life and his consequent need that some other woman than Mrs. 
Beecher should act the part of a wife to him — of the great treasure 
which he found in Mrs. Tilton's sweet and tender affection — of his pro- 
testation of a greater homage for her than for any other woman — of her 
duty to minister to his mind and body — and of the many precious argu- 
ments by which he commended these views to her, in order to overcome 
her Puritan repugnance to them ; and she said that finally, in an inter- 
view between herself and Mr. Beecher at hie house, not long after her 
little Paul's death, and as a recompense for the sympathy which her 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 523 

pastor had shown her during that bereavement, she then and there 
yielded her person to his sexual embrace. 

This event, she stated, occurred October 10, 1868, during my absence 
in New England, and she showed me a memorandum in her diary marked 
at that date with the words, "A day memorable." 

She further said that on the next Saturday evening (while I was still 
absent) Mr. Beecher visited her at her home in Livingston street, and 
consummated with her another act of sexual intimacy. 

She further confessed that at intervals during the ensuing fall and 
winter, and in the spring following, she repeated with him certain acts 
of criminal intercourse, yielding to him seldom though solicited often. 

Furthermore, with great particularity, she mentioned the several 
places of these interviews, which I cannot bring myself to chronicle 
here. 

This confession was made by Mrs. Tilton voluntarily, and not in re- 
sponse to any accusation by me, for I had never accused her of guilt 
either with Mr. Beecher or with any other person, nor had I ever sus- 
pected her of such wrong-doing. Neither was her confession made in 
sickness, but in unusual health. It was the free act of a sound mind 
under an accumulating pressure of conscience no longer to be resisted ; 
her sin, as she described it to me, consisting not so much of her adultery 
as of the deceit which she was thereby compelled to practise towards 
her husband. 

In Mrs. Tilton's published statement of July 24. 1S74, she admits that 
she made to mo in July, 1870, a " confession." She says : 

"A like confession with hers (namely, Catharine Gaunt's) I had made 
to Mr. Tilton in telling of my love to my friend and pastor one year 
before." 

So, too, the committee's report concedes that Mrs. Tilton made a 
" confession." The report says : 

" It now appears that Mrs. Tilton became strongly attached to Mr. 
Beecher. and in July. 1870, confessed to her husband an overshadowing 
affection for her pastor." 

The above acknowledgments — the first by Mrs. Tilton and the second 
by the committee — are true as far as they go. Mrs. Tilton did confess 
her love for her friend and pastor, but she also confessed not only Tier 
love for him. but his love for her ; and still further she confessed (and 
this was the chief burden of her confession) that this love resulted in a 
sexual intimacy extending during fifteen or sixteen months. 

This confession, stripped of its details but including its principal fact, 
was made by Mrs. Tilton, not only to me, but to several other persons, 
including Mr. Moulton and his wife; and a similar confession was made 
by Mr. Beecher, not only to me. but to Mr. Moulton and his wife. 



524 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Some of the confidants to whom Mrs. Tilton intrusted this secret were 
lady friends of hers whose names I am not willing to be the first to drag 
into this unhappy controversy. But as one of these persons has been 
already quoted by the public press (I refer to Miss Susan B. Anthony, 
to whom Mrs. Tilton told her story in the autumn of 1870), I here ad- 
duce a portion of a letter from Miss Anthony to Mr. Beecher's sister, 
Mrs. Hooker, of Hartford. It will be seen from the date that the letter 
was written just a fortnight after the publication of the Woodhull tale 
— two years ago : 

SUSAN B. ANTHONY TO MRS. HOOKER. 

Rochestkr, November 16, 1872. 

. . . The reply of your brother to you is not more startling, not 
so open a falsehood, as that to Mr. Watters [a newspaper reporter] : 
"Of course, Mr. Beecher, this is a fraud from beginning to end?" 
"Entirely." 

Wouldn't you think if God ever did strike any one dead for telling a 
lie, he would have struck then ? 

I feel the deepest sympathy with all the parties involved, but most of 
all for poor, dear, trembling Mrs. Tilton. My heart bleeds for her every 
hour. I would fain take her in my arms, with her precious comforts — 
all she has on earth — her children — and hide her away from the wicked 
gaze of men. 

For a cultivated man. at whose feet the whole world of men as well 
as of women sits in love and reverence, whose moral, intellectual, social 
resources are without limit — for such a man, so blest, so overflowing 
with soul food ; — for him to ask or accept the body of one or a dozen 
of his reverent and revering devotees, I tell you he is the sinner — if it 
be a sin — and who shall say it is not? 

My pen has faltered and stagirered ; it would not write you for these 
three days; and now, 7 p.m. Saturday, comes a letter from Mrs. Stanton 
in reply to mine asking how could she make that denial in the Levviston 
Telegram. [Referring to a report of Mrs. S.'s Laving denied the Wood- 
hull story.] She says: "Dear Susan. 1 had supposed you knew enough 
of papers to trust a friend of twenty years' knowledge before them. I 
never made nor authorized the statement made in the Lewiston paper. 
I simply said I never used the language Mrs. Woodhull put in my 
moutli ; that whatever I said was clothed in refined language at least, 
however disgusting the subject. I have said many times since the 
denouement "that if my testimony of what I did know would save 
Victoria from prison I should feel compelled to give it. You do not 
monopolize, dear Susan, all the honor there is among womankind. I 
shall not run before I am sent, but when the time comes I shall prove 
myself as true as you. No. no ! I do not propose to shelter a man when 
a woman's liberty is at stake." 

Now, my dear Mrs. Hooker. I wish you were with me to-night to 
rejoice with me that Mrs. Stanton is determined to stand firm to truth. 
1 ought not to have believed the Telegram true. I feel ashamed of my 
doubts, or rather of my beliefs. Mrs. Stanton says her daughter Hattie 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 525 

heard all she said to the two clergymen, and said to her : " Why, mother, 
you might as well have told them the whole thing was true." 

No, Mrs. Hooker ; I cannot now, any more than last winter, eomply 
with your request to reveal Mrs. T's whole story. 

Your brother will yet see his way out ! and let us hope he will be able 
to prove himself above the willingness that others shall suffer for weak- 
ness or wickedness of his. 

If he has no new theories, then he will surely be compelled to admit 
either that he has failed to live or to preach those he has ; and, which- 
ever horn of the dilemma he may choose, will acknowledge either weak- 
ness or wickedness, or both. Affectionately yours, 

Susan B. Anthony. 

The above letter from Miss Anthony not only indicates that Mrs. 
Tilton confessed her sexual intimacy with Mr. Beecher, but shows also 
that this intimacy was brought about, not because (as Mr. Beecher dis- 
honorably charges in his statement), Mrs. Tilton " thrust her affection 
on him unsought," but because he himself was the aggressor upon her 
love, honor and good name. I know full well from Mrs. Tilton's truthful 
story — told me at a time when she could have had no possible motive to 
deceive — that Mr. Beecher made the advances, which she for a long time 
repelled. It was he, not she, who instigated and achieved the crimi- 
nality between them. It was he, the revered pastor, who sought out his 
trustful parishioner and craftily spread his toils about her, ensnaring her 
virtue and accomplishing her seduction. Mrs. Tilton was always too 
much of a lady to thrust her affection upon Mr. Beecher or any other 
man " unsought." And yet Mr. Beecher, after having possessed himself 
of a woman at whose feet he had knelt for years before her surrender, 
has finally turned upon her with the false accusation that she was his 
tempter, not he hers ; for which act on his part I brand him as a coward 
of uncommon baseness, whom all manly men, both good and bad, should 
equally despise. I shall never permit him to put the blame on this 
woman. u She is guiltless," he said in his apology. He shall never take 
back that word. He well knew that the motive to guilt did not come 
from this gentle lady's pure and cleanly mind. I repeat here what I said 
before the committee — and what I shall believe to the end of my life — 
that Elizabeth Tilton is a woman of pure heart and mind, sinned against 
rather than sinning, yielding only to a strong man's triumph over her 
conscience and will, and through no wantonness or forwardness of her 
own. 

I have been told that I endanger my success in the battle which I am 
now fighting, by making this concession to my wife's goodness of motive. 
But I am determined in all this controversy to speak the exact truth in 
all points ; and I know that no indelicacy in Mrs. Tilton's behavior ever 



526 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

proceeded from her own voluntary impulse or suggestion; but that, on 
the contrary, her highly emotional religious nature was made by her 
pastor the means whereby he accomplished the ruin of his confiding 
victim. 

I take the liberty to quote here a passage from a letter by Mrs. Eliza- 
beth Cady Stanton to Mr. Moulton, as follows : 

MRS. STANTON TO MR. MOULTON. 

Tenafly, N. J., September 2, 1874. 
Francis D. Moulton : 

Dear Friend: — In your forthcoming statement, whatever you say or 
fail to say, do not forget as a brave knight to bring your steel on the 
head of •• The Great Preacher "for his base charge that Elizabeth Tilton 
thrust her love on him unsought. 

You know, better than Susan or I do, the time and arguments by 
which he achieved his purpose. 

Alas ! alas ! how little charity, to say nothing of common justice, has 

been shown woman in this tragedy 

Sincerely yours, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. 

One of Mrs. Tilton's friends — a lady to whom she long ago made her 
full confession — an intimate to whom she says in one of her letters, 

""Dear , I am as nearly open before you as before God;" and in 

another, " I love you as no other woman I ever knew ; " and in still an- 
other, "You remain to me, darling, the chief of human friends ;" — this 
lady has received many letters from Elizabeth, some of which contain 
allusions to Mr. Beechcr, not by name, but by the pronoun he or him, 
with an underscoring. In Mrs. Tilton's behalf (not in mine) I have 
been shown one of these letters, putting an end to the idea that Mrs. 
Tilton imposed her affection upon Mr. Beecher" unsought." The letter 
opens thus : 



MRS. TILTON TO MRS. 



July 31, 1872. 

My Dear and Good : — " Does not your heart prompt you to 

say a few words to your , or is it all on her side — this longing to put 

herself in communication with yon ? " 

This extract from your sweet note of to-day I answer rather strangely, 
perhaps, but with all tenderness. I do not yearn, nor did I ever yearn 
for him, because yours [i. e., your love], like his, was so unexpected, a 
perpetual surprise, a gift ever new, too high for me to appropriate. 

The above letter utterly annihilates the idea that Mrs. Tilton " thrust 
her affection upon him unsought ;" and no man who ever sued for and 
obtained a woman's love, however wrongfully rendered to him, could 
make such an accusation without proving himself capable of a baseness 
which few men, I believe, entertain towards women. 

If any further proof were needed that it was Mr. Beecher who solicited 
Mrs. Tilton's affection, and not she who thrust hers upon him — which 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 527 

he says many women in Plymouth Church do — this proof will be found 
in the letters which he wrote and in the gifts which he made to this 
ever grateful but never obtrusive woman. Touching these letters the 
committee's verdict contains the following extraordinary statement : 

"There is no proof [they say], clandestine correspondence, nor at- 
tempts in that direction. Mr. Beecher's letters were, as a rule, opened, 
arranged, and read by his wife." 

In reply to the above (as a single illustration of its untruth) I need 
only say that after Mrs. Tilton deserted her home I found in a locked 
closet, hidden away beyond chance of detection, a collection of clan- 
destine letters from Mr. Beecher to Mrs. Tilton ; some of them unad- 
dressed to her name and unsigned by his, revealing their designation 
only by the envelopes, and their authorship only by the handwriting. 
In one of these letters, printed in Mr. Moulton's recent statement, 
Mr. Beecher says : 

" My wife takes boat for Havana and Florida on Thursday." 

In another he asks Mrs. Tilton to write to him, for he says : 

" It would be safe. I am now at home here with my sister, and it is 
permitted to you.'* 

A man who — taking prompt advantage of the departure of a lynx- 
eyed wife who, " as a rule, opens and arranges and reads his letters " — 
makes haste to send this information to another lady from whom he 
solicits letters, saying it will be safe now for her to write them — such a 
man cannot accuse this lady of u thrusting her affections upon him 
unsoug<ht." 

In like manner, just as the committee have denied Mr. Beecher's 
clandestine letters, he himself has denied his clandestine gifts. He says 
that the only gift-tokens which he ever made to Mrs. Tilton were a 
" brooch " and " a copy of books." I do not understand what he means 
by "a copy of books." Is it a copy of the English edition of "Nor- 
wood," in three volumes ? He made her such a gift. But since her 
recent desertion of her home I have found a great number of books 
given to her by Mr. Beecher, sufficient to make a small library of them- 
selves — a collection which I never saw before, nor did I know that he 
had ever given them to her. A few of these books — mainly his own 
productions — contain in his own handwriting inscriptions addressed to 
her expressive of his regard and esteem. I transcribe the following : 



Royal Truths. Edition, Ticknor & Fields, 1866. Inscription : 

" Mrs. Theodore Tilton. with the regards of the author." 

The Sermons of Henry Ward Beecher. Edition, J. B. Ford & Co., 



528 THE TRUE HISTORY OE 

1869. First and second series, two volumes. Inscription in each 
volume : 

11 Mrs. Elizabeth Tilton, with the regards of Henry Ward Beecher. 

" February 8, 1870." 

The Overture of Angels. Illustrated. Edition, J. B. Ford & Co., 

1870. Inscription : 

"Mrs. Elizabeth Tilton, from her friend and pastor. H. W. Beecher. 

"February 8, '70." 

Lecture-Room Talks. J. B. Ford & Co., 1870. Inscription : 

" Mrs. Elizabeth Tilton, from II. W. Beecher. 

"April 9, 1870." 

Life of Jesus the Christ. Illustrated. Edition, J. B. Ford & Co., 

1871. Inscription : 

"Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton, with the respects and affections of her 
friend, Henry Ward Beecher. 

"Brooklyn, N. Y., October 13. 1871." 

Among his other gifts to her — one of the few which she did not se- 
crete from my knowledge — was a large water-color painting of a trailing 
arbutus, done from nature by a well-known New England artist, and 
inscribed as follows : 

For Mrs. Elizabeth Tilton, 
From her friend, 
H. W. Beecher. 
October 18, 1866. 

The inkstand from which she wrote her letters to her husband was, 
as I have learned, a gift from Mr. Beecher. I have also learned that 
during my absence on lecturing tours he kept her constantly supplied 
with flowers. To these he added some flower-vases to hold them, of 
various patterns. He gave her perfumes, fancy soaps, note-paper, and 
envelopes. Moreover, hidden away in the same closet to which I have 
alluded, I found a collection of photographs of his face and figure in 
various postures. Another of his gifts to her, which I have found 
since her desertion, was a packet wrapped in a white cloth like a wind- 
ing-sheet, which, on being opened, contained a religious picture .marked 
in his handwriting, "July 29. 1866," representing a design of the Virgin 
Mary holding the dead Christ. I would not here particularize these 
clandestine letters and surreptitious gifts except that the committee 
have boldly denied the letters and Mr. Beecher the gifts, and both Mr. 
Beecher and the committee have attempted to deceive the public, by 
the base defence that this misguided but always modest lady was guilty 
of an unwomanly boldness — foreign to her nature and impossible in her 
action — of " thrusting her affections upon him unsought." 

IV. Immediately after Mrs. Tilton's confession and her retirement 
into the country, in the summer of 1870. the tone, of her letters to her 
husband underwent a striking change. These letters were no longer 
shining links in a golden chain of daily messages of love and good-will, 



THE BTtOOKLYN SCANDAL. 529 

like the series published in the Chicago Tribune. Every letter or note 
was now shaded by some allusion to the shipwreck which had been 
wrought in her life and her home. 

These missives, thus freighted with the burden of her grief, I de- 
stroyed as soon as I received them, for fear they might be lost and 
found, and thus become tell-tales of the writer's secret. So far as I now 
remember, I destroyed every letter which I received from her during 
the summer and fall of 1870, and it is only by accident that I now 
possess a single one belonging to that period. This was written to her 
mother, and contained a copy of one written by my wife to me. Before 
producing this remarkable letter— or double letter — I must refer some- 
what unfavorably to Mrs. Tilton's mother, the Hon. Mrs. N. B. Morse. 

This eccentric lady has for years past been animated by violent 
hatreds and an uncontrollable temper, resulting often in hysterical fits. 
In one of these she clutched her husband by the throat and strangled 
him till he grew black in the face ; after which the venerable man called 
the family together and enacted a legal separation from her, which he 
maintains to this day. She has twice thrust her parasol like a rapier 
into my breast, breaking off the handle in her violence. Often and 
often she has sent me notes avowing her intention of taking my life. 
Her stormy peculiarities are well known to our family, and are partly 
excused on the ground that she is not wholly responsible for her con- 
duct — a view of her case which led her physician, the late Dr. Barker, 
of Brooklyn, to recommend her for treatment to an asylum for the 
insane. 

One evening in the summer of 1870, Mrs. Morse (before she received 
from Elizabeth her confession, though this confession had already been 
made to me) spoke calurnniously of a lady who was then, and is now, 
Mrs. Tilton's most intimate and honored friend. Mrs. Morse's calumny 
was that this lady had permitted a liaison with myself. I said to Mrs. 
Morse in Mrs. Tilton's presence : "Madam, either you must retire from 
this house, or else speak more respectfully of its master and his guests; 
and for your good behavior in this respect I shall hold your daughter 
responsible." Mrs. Morse instantly and in rage interpreted this as a 
counter-accusation against Mrs. Tilton. and turning? towards her, cried 
fiercely : "Elizabeth, have you been doing wrong?" There was some- 
thing in the suddenness of the question which struck Elizabeth mute 
and dumb ; whereupon Mrs. Morse fell upon her with another question : 
"Is it Mr. Beecher?" Mrs. Tilton suddenly left the room. Mrs. Morse 
following her, repeating her question until Elizabeth bowed her head in 
assent. Mrs. Morse then wrung her hands and exclaimed, "Oh, my 
God ! my God ! " 

During the several days immediately ensuing. Mrs. Morse, who had 
been made ill by the disclosure, held a few conversations with me, in 
34 



530 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

which she begged me to be gentle with her daughter, who, she said, had 
never before committed any sin in her life. 

So violent was Mrs. Morse's feeling against Mr. Beecher at this period, 
that she threatened to cut to pieces the oil-portrait of him which Page 
had painted for me ; in consequence of which threat I removed this work 
of art to Mr. Moulton's house, where it remains to this day. 

Then, for a short time, Mrs. Morse showed me love and respect. 
With her hands on my head she gave me her blessing, and said that if 
I could forgive the wrong which her daughter had done me, I would re- 
ceive the mother's affection so long as I lived. She said she was heart- 
broken and could henceforth look only to my leniency towards Elizabeth 
for any future comfort for either of them in this world. 

This disposition towards me in my mother-in-law was of short dura- 
tion. She soon became seized witli the conviction that I would follow 
the common custom of men in similar situations, and would sue for a 
divorce, to the ruin of her daughter's name. 

Finding that I took no such measure, yet expecting me to take it at 
any moment, she resolved upon a plan to thwart me in it. With great 
cunning, and with a gift for diplomacy amounting to genius, she con- 
ceived the idea of defeating my imaginary lawsuit for a divorce by in- 
venting false tales against me, and hiring and bribing the young maid, 
Bessie, to propagate them. These are the tales which Bessie referred to 
four years ago when, in a letter to Mrs. Tilton, she said : 

" Your mother, Mrs. Morse, has repeatedly attempted to hire me, by 
offering me dresses and presents, to go to certain persons and tell them 
stories injurious to the character of your husband." 

The object for which these tales were told is thus described by Mrs. 
Tilton in a letter to a lady friend, dated January 13, 1874 : 

" My husband has suffered much with me in a cruel conspiracy made 
by my poor, suffering mother, with an energy worthy of a better cause, 
to divorce us, etc." 

The stories which Mrs. Morse propagated in the carrying out of this 
conspiracy are mentioned by Mrs. Tilton in a letter to Mr. Moulton, as 
follows : 

" The story that I wanted a separation was a deliberate falsehood 
coined by my poor mother, who said she would take the responsibility of 
this and other statements she might make, etc." 

The above extracts from familiar documents illustrate the machina- 
tions of Mrs. Morse, yet too faintly portray the incessant ingenuity of a 
woman who has been for years the cause of unhappiness to her husband, 
to her son, to her daughter, to all her family and relations, and especially 
to me. 

The plan which Mrs. Morse devised for thwarting my supposed pro- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 531 

ceedings for divorce was carried forward by her during Mrs. Tilton's 
absence in Ohio, in the fall of 1870. Mrs. Morse was the more un- 
checked in prosecuting this scheme because she was at that time acting 
as my housekeeper and pretending to be my friend. But her experiment 
of housekeeping and friendship did not prosper long. After a few weeks 
of calm behavior, she gave me strange insults and threats. She pro- 
voked a quarrel with our servant Nora, and sent her away. She had a 
violent altercation with our other servant, Mary, necessitating the call- 
ing of a policeman. As I did not side with Mrs. Morse in this conflict 
she approached me with a carving-knife, and said she would like to cut 
my heart out. Unable to endure this treatment with equanimity, I 
ordered her to quit my house, which she did. 

Mrs. Tilton being still absent in the West, Mrs. Morse's vacant place 
was taken by an elderly lady, Miss Sarah Ellen Dennis, who had been a 
friend of our family for twenty-five years, a good and upright woman, 
now in her grave. I am able to fix the time of Miss Dennis's coming, 
because my daughter Florence then wrote from Brooklyn to her mother 
in Ohio, October 26, 1870, as follows: 

" Grandma is going to take charge of Mr. Bates's house. Father has 
gone to see it he can get Cousin Ellen to come here. I hope she will 
come, for I like her very much." 

As a point has been made by Mrs. Tilton and Mr. Beecher of the 
alleged indignities which this high-minded and grave housekeeper prac- 
tised towards Mrs. Tilton on the latter's return from the West, and as a 
malicious accusation of an improper intimacy between this good woman 
and myself has been concocted by Mrs. Morse, I am constrained to say, 
in behalf of the dead, that all who knew the late Miss Dennis will bear 
testimony to her gravity of character, her devotion to her duties, and 
her sober experience of years ; and I am outraged — as her relatives and 
friends justly are — that her honored memory should thus be insulted 
over her dust. Her only offence consisted in a kindly attempt to coun- 
teract with wise tact some of the extraordinary mischiefs which Mrs. 
Morse was preparing for the future ruin of my home. Miss Dennis, 
shortly after the publication of the Woodhull tale, wrote to me a note, 
dated December 3, 1872, in which she said: 

" Take the advice of a true friend. As you have waited so long, don't 
rush into the papers about this horrible Woodhull story. If yon deny 
it and put Mrs. Woodhull down, then Mrs. Morse loill rise up. She tells 
these same tales herself, and then quotes you as the author of them. This 
is the reward you get for defending Lib so manfully. The more you try 
to do the more Iwr mother will undo." 

After Mrs. Morse's retirement as my housekeeper, to be succeeded 
(at my daughter's request) by Miss Dennis, I received from my mother- 
in-law an almost daily letter of abuse. From these letters I will make a 



532 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

few extracts to show the spirit and temper of a woman with whom I be- 
lieve no man could possibly dwell long at peace. These extracts will 
moreover serve to show how well Mrs. Morse understood her daughter's 
criminal intimacy with Mr. Beecher. I have hitherto shrunk from 
making my wife's mother testify against her own daughter, but since 
these twain have united to wage against me a pitiless war of falsehood 
and obloquy, I am forced in self-defeace to exhibit these extracts from 
Mrs. Morse's letters : 

ELEGANT EXTRACTS FROM MRS. MORSE TO MR. TILTON. 

— " You infernal villain ! This night you should be in jail. . . . 
Why your treacherous tongue has not ere this been taken out by the 
roots is a wonder." 

— " Your slimy, polluted, brawny hand curses everything you touch. 
A perfect type of Uriah Heep. This is not original. It is well under- 
stood why 1 have been turned out of your rotten house." 

— " I have said you were not worth the time and paper, and I woulcl 
never waste either on you ; but the hypocrisy and villany of your course 
has of late been so apparent, and the sight of your base and perfidious 
person so revolting, I can tell you my opinion better this than any other 
way." 

— " I can with the stroke of my pen bring you to your knees and 
brand you for life The world would be better for the rid- 
dance of such a villain, and think no more of putting you aside than 
killing the meanest cur which runs the street. You diabolical, infernal, 
I would have killed you," etc., etc.. etc. 

— " You told Caroll I hit you. You poor deluded fool ! Caroll knew 
you deserved it." 

— " Retributive justice has partially overtaken you. Woman's rights 
have killed you. The remark I made three years ago last summer: If 
you had gone for your family instead of looking after woman's rights 
meetings, you would not be obliged to look up your lost trunk. For 
this I was told to leave the house and never enter it. For this you were 
made a beggar suddenly. Just as I predicted. And this I call retri- 
butive justice." 

— " If you have given her [Miss Dennis] the privilege of going to 
people and insinuating her dark and damning facts regarding your wife 
and children, it is a poor rule which won't work both ways." 

— " 1 never associated my child's name in the most distant manner 
with B. [Mr. Beecher]. The nearest I ever came was when Joseph 
[Mrs. Morse's son] questioned me how much I knew of the matter — if 
I thought B. was implicated. I said, ' All I can say is, I will tell you all 
my darling told me — she bowed her head' just as she did on that 'dark 
and dreadful night' when you. with your fist in her face, compelled her 
to acknowledge this sacred secret. And that act, with all its sickening 
details, will haunt me to my dying day." 

— " My poor, dear child never answered your bestial want — too reli- 
gious by nature and grace for such as you, and this want he answered. 
Till this hour I can swear that the only comfort I have taken has been 
in the fact that he was a comfort and did sympathize with her." 

— "Mr. M knows all, and it has been the sorrow of his life, and he 

now in a small measure understands my suffering." 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 533 

— " Do you suppose, after your vile tongue has been permitted to wag 
to E. D., that /would be silent? No, I will not. My poor, distracted 
child said, not a week since, ' Ma, 1 fear Ellen Dennis will ruin me and 
my children forever.' " 

— "You retaliate by exposing the only deed which my martyred child 
ever did which was not God-like, and this was brought about by the love 
and sympathy that man had for her ivretchedness ; and how she ever 
came to expose him or herself to one. she kneiv so well could not be trusted, 
eternity will not be long enough to reveal the mystery." 

I will not garnish this narrative with further writings from Mrs. 
Morse, except to add two brief notes of hers — one to Mr. Bowen, the 
other to myself. Shortly after my retirement from the Brooklyn Union, 
one of Mr. Bowen's clerks, thinking to give me an illustration of public 
sentiment touching my removal, sent me the following anonymous 
scrap, which I discovered at a glance to be in the familiar handwriting 
of my affectionate mother-in-law, Mrs. Morse : 

Mr. Bowen : — I congratulate you upon being rid of an Infidel, Liar, 
Hypocrite, Unbeliever, Free-lover, A Tyrant, Knave, and FOOL. 
January 20, 1871. Subscriber. 

The latest communication received by me from the author of the 
above letters was at the beginning of the present year, and contains the 
following confession and proposition : 

Clinton Place, January 29, 1874. 
Theodore : — ... I am more than willing to agree to this compact. 
It is this : If you, from this day, will agree to do all in your power to 
make the remainder of her life [Mrs. Tilton's] peaceful and happy (as 
far as the fearful past is concerned), shield her from reproach, giving 
her the feeling of safety, etc. . . I will, for my part, from this hour speak 
well of you, etc. 

Not to amplify needless illustrations of the character of Mrs. Morse, 
I will add only one more, consisting of a letter I had occasion to address 
to Judge Morse, her husband, two years ago, concerning her behavior 
in my house : 

MR. TILTON TO JUDGE MORSE. 

174 Livingston Street, December 6, 1872. 
Hon. N. B. Morse : 

My Dear Friend: — I regret to trouble you with any new facts con- 
cerning your trials or mine growing out of the temper or mania of Mrs. 
Morse, but I need your advice. 

Mrs. Morse had not been in my house for two years or thereabouts 
(to the best of my recollection), when suddenly, a few days ago. she first 
sent me a violent and insulting letter, threatening my life, and followed 
this with entering the house and insisting on her right to stay in it. I 
had an interview with her on her first appearance, treating her with 
kindness and expressing gladness at seeing her. They were the first 
words we had exchanged for many months. But she soon afterwards 
exhibited the old traits, and in an aggravated degree, with insults and 



534 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

outrages to my feelings of a character which self-respect does not permit 
me here to quote. 

I have made no reply to her except to request her to leave the house ; 
then, afterward, on her refusing to do so, positively to demand that she 
should go as soon as possible. 

She. therefore, asserts her claim to live in the house against my will, 
proposing to take the third-story front room, to keep the key to it, and 
to encamp herself as a member of the family, having her meals sent to 
her in order that she may not be annoyed with sitting at the table. 

What 1 want to ask you is, is there any legal measure to whicli I can 
quietly resort, so as to save her from a public exposure of her eccen- 
tricities, and at the same time to protect myself in my own house ? 

I will say still further that she does not hesitate to criminate her 
daughter in the most glaring way ; to say that the only pleasure she 
now takes in the world is in looking back on the time when (as she 
says) Elizabeth had the solace of a paramour; that she hopes she will 
have five hundred others, and that she is determined to have what she 
terms the family secret known and proven to the world. 

Yours, with more sorrow than patience, Theodore Tilton. 

The eccentric, uncontrollable, and mischief-making woman whose 
peculiarities are sufficiently set forth in the above extracts, devised a 
plan in 1870, as I have already said, to divorce Elizabeth from me in 
order to prevent my supposed design to divorce myself from her. In 
furtherance of this plan, Mrs. Morse, during Mrs. Tilton's absence in the 
West, not only circulated among my neighbors atrocious tales about 
me— such as kicking my wife while pregnant, knocking her with my fist 
to the floor, coming home drunk at night, etc. — but she furthermore 
undertook to win Elizabeth to this plan of divorce by plying her with 
letters filled with other equally false reports of my behavior — for ex- 
ample, that I was holding orgies in my house with strange women, 

making myself a and uttering drunken accusations against my 

wife, by vilifying her with Mr. Beecher as one of his many mis- 
tresses, etc. 

Elizabeth, although she was needful to Mrs. Morse's design of divorce, 
could not be converted to it. Nevertheless, under the powerful influence 
of her mother's slanders concerning me, my wife became alarmed at the 
prospect of my using her ruin as a prelude to my own. She seemed to 
reflect her mother's idea that I was taking a sudden plunge to perdition, 
drinking to drown my sorrows, filling my hard-working daily life with 
more sins than I had time to commit, hoping for my wife's speedy death, 
and threatening to publish her infamy to the world as soon as she should 
be under the sod ! 

Accordingly, Mrs. Tilton wrote me an earnest letter, full of allusions 
to her own previously confessed criminality with Mr. Beecher, begging 
me to be merciful to her in her brokenness of spirit, and remonstrating 
with me for the bad state of mind into which Mrs. Morse had described 
me to have fallen. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 535 

This letter I received at the office of the Brooklyn Union, in Novem- 
ber, 1870, I well remember reading it twice over, and then destroying 
it on the spot. 1 have since come into possession of a copy of it which 
Mrs. Til ton made at the time, incorporating it in a letter to her mother. 
This is the double letter to which I have previously alluded. It was 
written from Marietta, Ohio, to chide me for the supposed recklessness 
into which she had been informed by her mother that I had lapsed ever 
since the time of Mrs. Tilton's confession of adultery. The letter is as 
follows : 

MRS. TILTON TO MRS. MORSE. 

[Written from Marietta, Ohio, to Brooklyn.] 

November, 1870. 
I feel my duty now and love to you, my dear mother, impels me to 
send to you a copy which I this morning have written to Theodore, 
which I insist that you destroy, and use not in conversation with him. 
This — because of my trust in you — you will do, Pm sure. 

Friday Morning. 

Oh, Theodore, Theodore ! what shall I say to you? My tongue and 
pen are dumb and powerless, but I must force my aching heart to pro- 
test against your cruelty. I do not willingly chide, /suffer most when 
I discover to you my feelings. 

Do you not know that you are fulfilling your threat — that "I shall no 
longer be considered the saint ? " 

My life is before you. I have aspired to nothing save to do. through 
manifold infirmities, my best, and that not for human praise, but for the 
grateful love I feel towards Jesus Christ, my God. 

Do you not know, also, that when in any circle you blacken Mr. B's 
name — and soon after couple mine with it — you blacken mine as well ? 

When, by your threats, my mother cried out in agony to me, " Why, 
what have you done, Elizabeth, my child?" her worst suspicions were 
aroused, and I laid bare my heart then — that from my lips and not yours 
she might receive the dagger into her heart! Did not my dear child 
[Florence] learn enough by insinuations, that her sweet, pure soul 
agonized in secret, till she broke out with the dreadful question? I 
know not but it hath been her death blow ! 

When you say to my beloved brother — " Mr. B. preaches to forty of 

his m s every Sunday," then follow with the remark that after my 

death you have a dreadful secret to reveal, need he be told any more ere 
the sword pass into his soul ? 

After this " you are my indignant champion," are you? It is now too 
late ; you have blackened ray character, and it is for my loved ones that 
I suffer; yea, for the agony which the revelation has caused you, my 
cries ascend to Heaven night and day that upon mine own head all the 
anguish may fall. 

Believe you that I would thrust a like dart into your sister's or 
mother's heart were there occasion ? No, no. I would not. indeed. 

So after my death you will, to the bereaved hearts of those who love 
me. add the poisoned balm ! In heathen lands the sins of our beloved 
are buried, and only their virtues are remembered ! 

Theodore, your past is safe with me. rolled up, put away never to be 
opened — though it is big with stains of various hue — unless you force 



536 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

my for the sake of my children and friends to discover it, in self-defence 
or their defence. 

Would you suffer were I to cast a shadow on any lady whom you 
love? Certainly, if you have any manliness you would. Even so every 
word, look, or intimation against Mr. B., though I be in nowise brought 
in, is an agony beyond the piercing of myself a hundred times. His 
position and his good name are dear to me ; and even thus do 1 agonize 
— yea, agony is the word — for your good name, and if you will only 
value it yourself to keep it good, 1 am and always will be your helper. 

Once again I implore you for your children's sake, to whom you have 
a duty in this matter, that my Past be buried — left with me and my 
God. He is merciful. Will you. his son. be like him? 

Do not be alarmed about mother ; you are not responsible for her 
revelations. Do not think or say any more that my ill-health is on 
account of my sin and its discovery. It is not true, indeed. My sins 
and my life's record I have carried to my Saviour, and his delicacy and 
tenderness towards me passeth even a mother's love or " the love of 
woman." I rest in him, I trust i)i him. and though the way is darker 
than death, I do hear " the si ill small voice " which brings to me a peace 
life's experience has never before brought me. No, my prostration is 
owing to the suffering I have caused you, and will cause those I love in 
the future if the spirit of forgiveness does not exorcise the spirit of 
hate. And add to this the revelations you have made of yoxir fallen con- 
dition, witness of which I am daily! This it is that breaks my heart. 
How can I but " linger at my praying " at the thought of you ? 

Oh, do avoid all stimulating drinks, my darling. 1 know many a 
heart-ache would have been saved, only you knew not what or how the 
cruel word was said ! I have failed in my duty to you from lack of 
courage to speak of these things. Allow me to advise with you now, my 
dearly beloved, for surely I am your best friend, and for the sake of our 
precious born and unborn. I tell you that since I have been conscious 
of wronging you I needed only to know that, and always in everything 
I utterly forsake the wrong, repent before God alone, and strive to bring 
fortli fruit worthy of repentance. Will you for the added reason of 
your soul's sake do the same? 

I feel that you are not in the condition of mind to lead the '• woman's 
suffrage " movement, and I implore you to break away from it and from 
your friends Susan, Mrs. Stanton, and every one and everything that 
helps to make a conflict with your responsibilities as husband and father. 
My life is still spared ; my heart never yearned over you more in sorrow- 
ing love than now. But there must be a turning to God that will lead 
you to forsake forbidden ways, so that the sources and springs of your 
life be renewed, ere I shall feel it my duty to return. 

I have gained a little, and with this small addition of strength my 
first impulse is to fly to you and comfort you in these new dislractions 
which come to you through your business and its threatening changes. 
I have long felt, dear husband, you did not fill up your responsibilities 
towards the Independent as its religious chief and head. Oh. that you 
could be made to see and feel the amount of good you might do tor 
Christ from that pulpit ! Oh. my babe would leap in my womb lor joy 
did your soul but awake to love God, and serve him with the fervor ot 
the early days. 

As I look out from ray retirement here, these are my thoughts and 
desires. 

I shall mourn if there seemeth to your aching heart a harsh word. I 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 537 

will pray God's spirit to follow the written line, and so it will not, can- 
not offend. 

I do not hesitate to return to Brooklyn and renew my home-work. 
Far be it from me to shirk my duty ; on the contrary, to have again the 
privilege of being with my entire family is the ambition I feel to gain in 
health here. Forgive the long letter. Good-night. 

Your Dear Wife. 
Postscript. 

Dear mother, I will now add a line to 3-011. I should mourn greatly 
if my life was to be made yet known to father : his head would be bowed 
indeed to the grave. I love him very much, and it would soothe my 
heart could you be restored to him. 1 was greatly touched by his say- 
ing to you that "you were still his wife." 

Would not his sympathizing heart comfort you in your great sorrow ? 

Both your letter and Theodore's came together, concerning your 
interviews with Joseph. 

You will see that by reading or showing this letter to any one you 
discover my secret. It is because I trust you, dear mother, that I send 
you this, that you may know my spirit completely toward you both. 

I have been told " Confide not in your mother " ; but I reply, "To 
whom on earth can I confide ? " 

I think it pre-eminently wise for us to destroy our letters respecting 
this subject, lest Florry or some one should pick them up. 

Darling. 

What a letter ! 

The brief confession which Mrs. Tilton wrote of her criminal intimacy 
with Mr. Beecher, and which was referred to by Mr. Moulton as held by 
him until I procured it from him and returned to her to be destroyed, 
has been falsely called a confession wrung from a wife at her husband's 
command. But no such accusation can hold against the above letter, 
which a daughter wrote to her mother, and which contains as plain a 
confession of Mrs. Tilton's intimacy with Mr. Beecher as language can 
express — a confession all the more veritable because made without 
design, and in the absence of any other controlling influences upon the 
writer save the pressure of her own conscience and sorrow, as evinced 
in her melancholy contemplation of the calamity which had .fallen upon 
her honor and her home. 

In view of Mrs. Tilton's truthful confession in the above letter four 
years ago. of what avail are her recent denials to the committee? 

The committee themselves have practically impugned the testimony 
which their own attorneys prompted Mrs. Tilton to make to them ; and 
Mr. Beecher's own journal, the Christian Union, soon after the rendering 
of the verdict, published a conspicuous editorial article on purpose to 
put forth, under the stamp of Mr. Beecher's name, the following official 
rejection of Mrs. Tilton's evidence by the Beecher party. The Christian 
Union says : 

" Tin's pom- woman has been shown to be «o weak, so wholly suhject to the 
strongest ovtside influence at the moment, that the general public can give 
bat little weight to her testimony, either for or against Mr. Beecher.'''' 



538 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

The above extract from the Christian Union invalidating Mrs. Tilton's 
testimony necessarily blots out from Mr. Beecher's defence all Mrs. 
Tilton's recent denials of their criminality, and leaves him to be convicted 
by Mrs. Tilton's original, honest, dispassionate confession of their mutual 
sin, recorded in the above-quoted letter to her mother. 

This letter, therefore, effectually disposes of two principal points of 
the committee's verdict. One of these points the committee state as 
follows : 

"Tilton's allegation that she (Mrs. T.) confessed to her mother, Mrs. 
Morse, is 'pronounced false by the mother, who testified before the com- 
mittee." 

Mrs. Tilton's letter, above given, together with the extracts from Mrs. 
Morse's letters, show that Mrs. Morse, in denying to the committee that 
her daughter had ever made to her a confession of adultery, wan a delib- 
erate falsehood — half pardonable, perhaps, because uttered by a mother 
to save her daughter. The committee, in relying on Mrs. Morse's tes- 
timony, relied on a false basis, which now sinks and carries down with it 
the committee's verdict into an unfathomed depth. 

The other point in the verdict which the above letter effectually settles 
is the following : 

"'She' (Mrs. Tilton), says the committee, 'has always denied the 
charge when free from the dominating influence of her husband.' " 

Mrs. Tilton's above letter to her mother was written ".free from the 
dominating influence of her husband/' It was written 578 miles from her 
husband's presence. It was written not at his request, but for his con- 
demnation. It was written to reproduce to him the feelimjs excited in 
his wife's mind by the contemplation of her wrong-doing, and to appeal 
to him, from such a basis, against the moral recklessness which she. then 
believed that her fall had produced upon his religious views and daily 
life. It was written before Mr. Beecher knew that she had betrayed 
him, and, of course, before he had indicted his own equally agonizing 
"letter of contrition." It was written before Mrs. Tilton had any idea 
of future public proceedings by a church committee who would ask her 
to deny the truth, in order to save Mr. Beecher. It was written before 
Mrs. Morse expected to be called upon to add her own falsehoods to her 
daughter's for this same purpose. It was written with no suspicion that 
these joint falsehoods of mother and daughter were thus to be exploded 
by the counter-records of their own correspondence ! 

On both these points the committee's own witnesses falsify the com- 
mittee's own verdict. 

Candor now requires me to state that the committee are correct in 
one point. Their report says : 

" This unhappy woman (Mrs. Tilton) has been the plastic victim of 
extorted falsehoods." 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 539 

The committee are correct in this view. Mrs. Tilton has indeed been 
"the plastic victim of extorted falsehoods." These are the falsehoods 
extorted from her during her cross-examination- — " extorted falsehoods" 
which the committee reproduce in their verdict as true, namely, that she 
was a victim to my "ill-treatment," including deprivation of " food and 
fire," " imprisonment under lock and key," and other hardships from which 
she "fled for peace to the graves of her children" — "extorted false- 
hoods " never prompted by Mrs. Tilton's own mind (if she still remains 
the kindly and tender-hearted woman whom I knew, but extorted from 
her as the " plastic victim " of Mr. Beecher's attorneys, who. having first 
used her for Mr. Beecher's defence, have since repudiated the very testi- 
mony which they thus extorted from her, pronouncing it worthless even 
for the base purpose for which it was thus extorted from this " plastic 
victim." 

Y. I now call attention to the difference of tone between Mrs. Tilton's 
letter to me, written before her confession of July 3, 1870, and those 
written after it — as will be seen by comparing the extracts quoted (in 
section Ii) from the correspondence published in the Chicago Tribune, 
with my wife's letter from Marietta, Ohio, to her mother in Brooklyn. 
This same difference is seen in all Mrs. Tilton's correspondence subse- 
quent to her confession. All her letters written from Schoharie in the 
summer of 1871 — of which the Catharine Gaunt letter and other peni- 
tential specimens have been heretofore published — exhibit a different 
woman from that whose portrait is unconsciously portrayed by her own 
hand in the correspondence published in the Chicago Tribune. The 
early sunshine of her life, which made golden every touch of her pen in 
those happier years, took a permanent shade at the date of her confession 
in July, 1870, and has since been never free from a cloud. It is impossible, 
for instance, to imagine such a letter as the following to have been written 
to me by Mrs. Tilton as one of the series in the Chicago Tribune, ending 
July 3, 1870 : 

MRS. TILTON TO HER HUSBAND. 

July 29, 1871. 
" Your lines sent to me in Florry's letter I respond to from my soul's 
depths. 

" So you do not hate " YouR 

Nor in all that early period would she have written thus, dated Scho- 
harie, June 20, 1871 : 

" My mind no longer insists upon a lonely, daily wandering through 
my past." 

Nor would she then have said, as she does in the last quoted letter : 
" The romantic love of the sexes doth not satisfy." 



540 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Nor would she have cried out as follows, dated July 4, 1871 : 

u Oh, my dear husband, may you never need the discipline of being 
misled by a good woman, as I have been by a g^od ?mh." 

Nor could she have, in happier days, penned this, of the same date 
with the preceding : 

" I thank you fur the sufferings of the past year. You have been my 
deliverer. 1 '' 

As a farther illustration of Mrs. Tilton's prevailing state of mind, 
induced by her criminal intimacy with Mr. Beecher, by her confession 
thereof to her husband, and by the shadowy memories that followed 
these sad facts, I will mention an incident : One day in October, 1871, 
during a wearisome railroad ride, I beguiled myself with the composition 
of a little poem, which I sent in lead-pencil to the Golden Age, and 
which appeared in that paper under the title of "Sir Marmaduke's 
Musings," containing the following stanza : 

" I clasped a woman's breast, 
As if her heart 1 knew, 
Or fancied would be true ; 
Who proved — alas, she too ! — 
False like the rest." 

On my return home, after publishing the above, I was piteously assailed 
by Mrs. Tilton, who, with tears in her eyes, reproached me, saying, " 0, 
Theodore, you might as well have called me by name." Meanwhile, I 
had not been conscious of any offence against my wife in the above 
publication, because no public allusion had yet connected Mrs. Tilton'' s 
name with Mr. Beecher"**. The Woodhull story, which first did this, 
did not appear till more than a year afterward, namely, November 2, 
1872! 

In still further illustration of the excitable state of Mrs. Tilton's mind 
at any public allusion — friendly or otherwise — to the scandal which Mrs. 
Woodhull published, I may mention that shortly after that publication 
I prepared for the press the card known as the letter to " My Complain- 
ing Friend." I wrote it in my wife's presence, and submitted it to her 
judgment. She approved the card, and seemed pleased and satisfied. It 
was designed to throw a shield of protection over her against Mrs. Wood- 
hull's attack. Although that card has been extensively published, I beg 
the favor of reproducing it here, in order that its kindly phraseology 
towards ray wife may be carefully weighed, and in order also that the 
comment which she subsequently made upon it may be understood. 
The card was as follows : 

THE " COMPLAINING FRIEND " CARD. 

No. 174 Livingston Street, ) 

Brooklyn, December 27, 1872. j 
My Complaining Friend : — Thanks for your good letter of bad ad- 
vice. You say, " How easy to give the lie to the wicked story, and 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 541 

thus end it forever ! " But stop and consider. The story is a whole 
library of statements— a hundred or more — and it would be strange if 
some of them were not correct, though I doubt if any are. To give a 
general denial to such an encyclopedia of assertions would be as vague 
and irrelevant as to take up the Police Gazette, with its twenty-four 
pages of illustrations, and say, " This is all a lie." So extensive a libel 
requires, if answered at all, a special denial of its several parts ; and, 
furthermore, it requires, in this particular case, not only a denial of 
things misstated, but a truthful explanation of the things that remain 
unstated and in mystery. In other words, the false story, if met at all, 
should be confronted and confounded by the true one. Now, my friend, 
you urge me to speak ; but when the truth is a sword, God's mercy some- 
times commands it sheathed. If you think I do not burn to defend my 
wife and little ones, you know not the fiery spirit within me. But my 
wife's heart is more a fountain of charity, and quendies all resentments. 
She says : "■ Let there be no suffering save to ourselves alone," and for- 
bids a vindication to the injury of others. From the beginning she has 
stood with her hand on my lips, saying, "Hush /" So, when you 
-prompt me to speak for her you countervail her more Christian man- 
date of silence. Moreover, after all, the chief victim of the public dis- 
pleasure is myself alone, and so long as this is happily the case, I shall 
try with patience to keep my answer within my own breast, lest it shoot 
forth like a thunderbolt through other hearts. Yours truly, 

Theodore Tilton. 

The above card — which was an attempt on my part, with my wife's 
knowledge and approval, to avoid telling a lie, and yet at the same time 
to avoid telling the truth — I published solely for the sake of the com- 
fort which I thought its publication would bring to Mrs. Tilton by 
showing to the public that she and I were of one mind, and that inferen- 
tially, therefore, the scandalous story was false. To say that the card 
was hostile to Mrs. Tilton is to make a misuse of the words. It was full 
of friendliness to her. She had approved it in manuscript. But no 
sooner had the card appeared in the Brooklyn Eagle, accompanied with 
some disparaging editorial comments, than Mrs. Tilton, although she 
herself had been a party to the publication, wrote and left on my desk 
the following bitter and reproachful note — the italics being her own : 

MRS. TILTON TO HER HUSBAND. 

December 28. 1872. 

Theodore : — I have had one of my selfish days. They are rare indeed. 
But your note in the Eagle of last night was so heartless. I did not 
hear when you read it — only realized it on seeing it in print. 

You should have sheltered me (a noble man would) all the more be- 
cause the truth. 

Innocence demanded nothing from you. 

To you I owe this great injustice of exposure, such as has never be- 
fore befallen a woman. 

Blow after blow, ceaseless and unrelenting these three years ! 

O cruel spirit born of the devil of anger and revenge ! 

You know what I am. 

Yet now that exposure has come, my whole nature revolts to join 
with you or standing with you. 



542 THE TKUE HISTORY OF 

As a further illustration of Mrs. Tilton's extreme feverishness of mind 
at any public allusion to the scandal, I will mention the following : The 
tripartite covenant, which was signed April 2, 1872, was published May 
31, 1873; and its publication drew forth a few days afterward the. ap- 
pended card from Mr. Beecher in the Brooklyn Eagle, June 2, 1873 : 

MR. BEECHER'S CARD EXONERATING MR. TILTON. 

To the Editor of the Brooklyn Eagle: June 2, 1873. 

Dear Sir: — I have maintained silence respecting the slanders which 
have for some time past followed me. I should not speak now but for 
the sake of relieving another of unjust imputation. The document that 
was recently published bearing my name, with others, was published 
without consultation either with me or Mr. Tilton, nor with any author- 
ization from us. If that document should lead the public to regard 
Theodore Tilton as the author of the calumnies to which it alludes it 
will do him great injustice. I am unwilling that he should even seem to 
be responsible for injurious statements whose force was derived wholly 
from others. H. \V. Bkecher. 

The agitation of Mr. Beecher's mind, out of which the above card 
grew, I well remember; and some traces of it appear in Mr. Beecher's 
reminiscences which he gave to the committee during his examination ; 
but the equally great distress of Mrs. Tilton at the same time has not 
yet been made public, and will appear in the following letter written by 
her to a friend who had rebuked her for imputing to me the publication 
of that covenant, although the bad business of publishing it was done 
by my friend, critic, and freely forgiven calumniator, Mr. Samuel "VVilke- 
son, Mr. Beecher's Hotspur of a partner : 

MRS. TILTON TO MRS. . 

Wednesday, June 4, 1873. 

My Dearly Beloved: — The terrible days of Saturday and Sunday 
last, resulting in the evil condition of soul wherein you found me yester- 
day, have utterly overcome me. I feel sick all over my body to-day. 
Indeed I cannot afford to be ugly and wicked. 

That you came, I bless God ; for I vomited forth all the wickedness 
into your safe care — and I am relieved, though pnfoundly ashamed, 
that I should judge and injure T. as I did ; yet in certain states of mind 
there are roused in me demons, which fill me with horror that they exist. 
Surely ivifh so bad a heart as mine T cannot judge him! 

I sincerely hope he has had his last blow from me. — By-bye, 

E . 

I have given the preceding letters and extracts to show how heavily 
Mrs. Tilton's guilty secret pressed on her heart, particularly in exigen- 
cies when she feared exposure ; and there is much in her agonized 
expressions to remind the reader of Mr. Beecher's similar strains of woe 
over the same cause. 

VI. Having thus considered Mrs. Tilton's confession of July 3, 1870, 
together with the various facts which cluster more closely about this 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 543 

than about any other single branch of this case, I shall now take oppor- 
tunity, before coming to my dealings face to face with Mr. Beecher, to 
refer to Mr. Henry C. Bowen. I must do this with some explicitness, 
because the key-note of Mr. Beecher's attack on me is that my accusa- 
tion against him originated in my business troubles with Mr. Bowen. 
In Mr. Beecher's elaborate statement, the first proposition which he 
lays down, and which forms the basis of his ensuing argument, is in 
these words : 

"Four years ago, Theodore Tilton fell from one of the proudest edi- 
torial chairs in America." 

I shall show that the above statement, together with the whole argu- 
ment that Mr. Beecher bases upon it, is so wholly untrue that I might 
almost say that language could not be put to a falser use. 

From the beginning of 1856 to the close of 1870 — a period of fifteen 
years — I was in Mr. Bowen's employ in the Independent in various 
characters, from subordinate to chief. How well I served my employer 
he himself publicly attested at the end of fourteen years of my service, 
when, in publishing an illuminated edition of the Independent, in com- 
memoration of the twenty-first year of its age — which was the year be- 
fore I left — he published over his own signature a special eulogy of my 
labors. In this article, which states that it was written "to do justice 
to its present editor, Theodore Tilton." Mr. Bowen looks back through 
my fourteen years of service and records himself as " approving his (Mr. 
Tilton's) every movement and suggestion," etc. I could not have wished 
higher praise from my employer, particularly as covering so long a 
period of service. 

During the following year, 1870 — which was the last of my connection 
with the Independent — I became temporarily the editor also of the 
Brooklyn Daily Union. I have a letter from Mr. Bowen, dated as late 
as August 11, 1870, concerning my labors in the Union, which the 
writer begins in the following extravagant style : 

Woodstock, Ct. 

My Dear Mr. Tilton : — If I had a seventy-four pounder, I would fire 
it among these hills and set them reverberating in honor of your last 
leader on politics. 

The above is a fair specimen of the cordial way in which Mr. Bowen, 
during fifteen years, was prompt to approve my course — a degree of 
appreciation on his part for which, in spite of my subsequent disagree- 
ment with him, I always look back upon gratefully. My first difference 
with Mr. Bowen — a trifling one — occurred shortly after he wrote the 
above letter. He had meanwhile come to Brooklyn, and taken a strong 
interest in the election of certain local candidates whom I had opposed. 
Moreover, he was a supporter of President Grant, whom he entertained 
at Woodstock, and whom I criticised in the Independent. After the 



544 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Brooklyn election was over Mr. Bowen and I, in a friendly conversation, 
reviewed these differences, and other differences growing out of my in- 
creasing heterodoxy of religious belief. After two or three friendiy 
interchanges, he expressed a desire to become himself the sole editor 
of the Independent, just as he was its sole owner. To this end he 
wanted me lo transfer my pen to the first page of that paper as its spe- 
cial contributor, while at the same time he wanted me to sign a contract 
to edit the Brooklyn Union for the ensuing five years. The pecuniary 
inducements which he held out to commend this proposed change to 
my mind were flattering, consisting of an income of about $14,000 a 
year and upwards. This arrangement took legal and binding form by 
the signing of two contracts between Mr. Bowen and myself, about the 
20th of December, 1870. Two days afterwards, in pursuance of these 
arrangements, the Independent, in publishing my valedictory, accom- 
panied it with the following eulogy on its retiring editor : 



[From the Independent, December 22, 1870.] 

The proprietor and publisher, and hereafter editor of the Independent, 
in view of the discontinuance of Mr. Til ton's editorial relations to this 
paper, as indicated in the above valedictory, is happy to announce to 
the public that this change is not the fruit of any misunderstanding 
between Mr. Tilton and himself. His retirement, though involving 
many regrets to both parties, and sundering an official tie which has 
always been marked with the largest mutual confidence, is based on 
reasons in the wisdom and propriety of which both are like agreed. 

Mr. Tilton has for the last seven years ably and successfully filled the 
editorial chair of the Independent, doing a great and good work for the 
country and the world, and uniformly writing the leader in the editorial 
column. 

If the paper has been a power among the people; if its utterances 
have affected the policy of the nation during the bitter years of our 
war, and during the process of civil reconstruction ; or if a spirit of 
broader Christian charity has grown upon our readers; all this has been 
due in no small degree to the genius of Mr. Tilton. 

Perhaps no other man in the country combines so many qualities 
that were needed to give us the position we have gained. Bold, uncom- 
promising, a master araon? men; crisp, direct, earnest; brilliant, imagi- 
native, poetic; keen as a Damascus blade, and true as the needle to its 
pole in his sympathies with the needs of man, he was surely designed 
by Providence for the profession he has chosen. 

Our readers who have so long enjoyed the benefit of his racy and 
gifted pen will be glad to know that they will have an opportunity of 
meeting hirn weekly in our columns as a special contributor under his 
own name. He has consented to perform this service in addition to 
his labors as editor of the Brooklyn Daily Union. 

Cordially welcoming him in his new character, and gratified in being 
able to say that his editorial connection with the Independent termi- 
nates only with honor and with most perfect satisfaction to himself, 
we shall in our next issue announce our plans for the future, etc.. etc. 

Henry 0. Bowkn. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 545 

Mr. Bowen, in addition to his published encomium of me above quoted, 
gave me a gold watch of a reputed value of $500 ; and Oliver Johnson, 
then the managing editor of the Independent, to whom I had made a 
similar gift, sent me the following note, December 29, 1870 : 

"Dear Theodore: — Don't buy a chain for your new watch, for I 
have ordered one which I want you to accept as a New Year's present 
from me." 

The above particulars of my retirement from the Independent's edi- 
torial chair — a retirement which Mr. Bowen said was to my honor, and 
which I believed was to my profit — I have thus been compelled to give 
at tedious length, in order that the exact facts may confront Mr. 
Beecher's false description of the same event, when he said as above 
quoted: "Four years ago Theodore Tilton fell from one of the proudest 
editorial chairs in America" 

The preceding record, from the Independent's own columns and by 
its own editors, touching the circumstances of my retirement from that 
editorial chair, show how I "fell:" — and I may add that I would be 
happy to experience another such fall. 

As soon as I had completed the above-mentioned arrangements with 
Mr. Bowen, and they had been announced as above quoted, lie urged 
me to make, a more prominent figure of Plymouth Church in the Daily 
Union, and remarked on my non-attendance at the church meetings. 

This led me to reply that I had a good reason for not going to 
Plymouth Church, and that I should never again sit under Mr. 
Beecher's ministry. 

On Mr. Bowen's urging me to give this reason, I reminded him first 
of his own oft-repeated charges against Mr. Beecher as a clergyman 
given to loose behavior with women, and dangerous to the families of 
his congregation. I said that I had in past times given little credence 
to these accusations, being slow to believe ill of my pastor and friend ; 
but that I had been informed by Mrs. Tilton, a few months previously, 
of improper behavior by Mr. Beecher towards her, and that I should 
never again attend Plymouth Church. 

Mr. Bowen instantly pressed me to know the exact nature of what 
Mrs. Tilton had told me, but I declined to put him in possession 
of anything further than that. Mr. Beecher had assaulted the honor of 
my house. 

This announcement fanned Mr. Bowen to a flame of anger against 
Mr. Beecher. All his own past grievances against his pastor seemed 
to be rekindled into sudden heat. He walked up and down his library, 
denouncing Mr. Beecher as a man guilty of many adulteries, dating 
from his Western pastorate and running down through all the succeed- 
ing years. Mr. Bowen declared that Mr. Beecher had, in the preceding 
month of February, 1870, confessed to him certain of these adulteries. 
35 



546 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

and Mr. Bowen pointed out to me the exact spot in his library whereon 
Mr. Beecher, with tears and humbleness, had (as Mr. Bowen said) ac- 
knowledged to him his guilt. 

Mr. Bowen in this interview declared that he and I owed a duty to 
society in this matter, and that I ought to join him in a just demand 
on Mr. Beecher to retire from the ministry, to quit the city, and to be- 
take himself beyond the reach of the families whose homes he was in- 
vading like a destroyer. 

Mr. Bowen challenged me to write such a demand, and begged for an 
opportunity to bear it to Mr. Beecher in person, saying that he would 
support it by a great volume of evidence, and would compel its enforce- 
ment. I wrote on the spot the note mentioned in Mr. Moulton's state- 
ment, and whicli seemed to please Mr. Bowen greatly. Just as I was 
leaving his house, his last word to me was, " Henry Ward Beecher is a 
wolf in the fold, and I know it ; he ought never to preach another sermon 
nor write another word in a religious newspaper ; he endangers families 
and disgraces religion ; he should be blotted out." 

This interview with Mr. Bowen occurred on the 26th of December, 
1870, and was partly in the presence of Oliver Johnson, who retired 
before it was ended. 

On that same day I informed Mr. Moulton of this interview, as he has 
noticed in his narrative. 

I also informed Mrs. Tilton, who, as she was then just recovering from 
a recent miscarriage, received the intelligence with great distress. She 
spoke alarmingly of Mr. Bowen's long hatred of Mr. Beecher, which 
now seemed to her to be about to break forth afresh, and said that if 
Mr. Bowen and I should thus combine against Mr. Beecher she would 
run a risk of an exposure of her own secret. She wept, and reminded 
me of the pledge which I had given her six months before, to do her 
pastor no wrong. She said, moreover, that Mr. Beecher might not al- 
together understand my letter to him demanding his retirement " for 
reasons which he explicitly knew," because she had not yet informed 
him that she had made her confession to me. I was surprised at this in- 
telligence, for in the previous August she told me that she had commu- 
nicated to Mr. Beecher the fact that she had told me the story of their 
sexual association. She went on picturing to me the heart-break which 
she would suffer if, in the coming collision between Mr. Bowen and Mr. 
Beecher, her secret should be divulged. I well remember the pitiful 
accents in which, for the children's sake and her own, she pleaded her 
cause with me, and begged me to be gentle with Mr. Beecher, and to 
protect him from Mr. Bowen's anger ; also, to quench my own. 

Lying on her bed sick, she said that unless I could stop the battle 
which seemed about to open, and could make peace between Mr. Bowen 
and Mr. Beecher — if not for their sakes at least for hers — and could my- 



THE BKOOKLYX SCANDAL. 547 

self become reconciled to the man who had wronged me, she would pray 
God that she might die. She then begged me to send for Mr. Beecher, 
desiring me to see him in her presence, to speak to him without malice 
when he came, and to assure him that I would not proceed in the matter 
of his expulsion from the pulpit. I declined such an interview as not 
comely for a sick woman's chamber, nor was I willing to subject her to 
the mortification of conferring with her paramour in the presence of her 
husband. 

After this conversation with Mrs. Tilton, I notified Mr. Bowen that I 
intended to see Mr. Beecher face to face. In response to this intelli- 
gence, Mr. Bowen came into my editorial room at the Union office, and 
without asking or giving me any explanation, but exhibiting a passion 
such as I had never witnessed in him before, and speaking like one who 
was in fear" and desperation, he exclaimed in a high key that if I divulged 
to Mr. Beecher the story of his numerous adulteries as he (Mr. Bowen) 
had narrated them, he (Mr. Bowen) would interdict me from ever again 
entering his office or his house. He then suddenly retired. 

This unexpected exhibition on Mr. Bowen's part I could not compre- 
hend; for I did not dream that Mr. Bowen, who was so determined an 
enemy of Mr. Beecher, had meanwhile entered into sudden league with 
the object of his hate, in order to overthrow, nofc Mr. Beecher, but 
myself!. 

I informed Elizabeth at once of Mr. Bowen's excited interview. She 
believed that his excitement was only a further evidence of his ancient 
malice against Mr. Beecher. She said that Mr. Beecher had often told 
her how greatly he feared Mr. Bowen. She was now appalled at the 
prospect of Mr. Bowen's violent assault on her pastor. She renewed her 
entreaty to me that I would prevent the coming conflict between the 
two men. Elizabeth's distress, in view of this expected conflict, it 
would be impossible to exaggerate, as it was heightened by her still en- 
feebled condition. She begged me to see Mr. Beecher without delay, 
and. for her sake, to put him on his guard against Mr. Bowen, and to 
explain to him that though I had written the letter demanding his re- 
tirement from the pulpit, yet that I had afterwards listened to ray wife's 
entreaty, and had promised her that I would not press the demand to 
execution. 

At her own suggestion she wrote a note to Mr. Beecher, and gave it 
to me, stating therein that she was distressed at the prospect of trouble, 
and begged, as the best mode of avoiding it, that a reconciliation might 
be had between Mr. Beecher and myself. She informed him in this 
letter that she had made to me a confession, six months before, of her 
sexual intimacy with him, and that she had hitherto deceived her husband 
into believing that her pastor knew of this confession having been made. 
She said she was distracted at having caused so much misery, and prayed 



5-18 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

that Mr. Beecher and her husband might instantly unite to prevent Mr. 
Bowen from doing- the damage which he had threatened in instigating 
Mr. Beecher's retirement from the church. 

This letter of Mrs. Tilton's was written on the 29th of December, 
1870. I carried it in my pocket during the remainder of that day and 
all the next until evening, and then resolved that I would accede to my 
wife's request, and for her sake would prevent the threatened exposure 
of Mr. Beecher by Mr. Bowen. 

I accordingly went to Mr. Moulton, as he has stated, and put into his 
hands my wife's letter, which conveyed to him his first knowledge of her 
adultery. He then, as he has described, brought Mr. Beecher to me, on 
Friday evening, December 30. through a violent wintry storm, which 
Mr. Beecher referred to on the* way as appropriate to the disturbed 
hour. 

VII. The interview which followed between Mr. Beecher and me I 
shall relate somewhat in detail, because his recent distorted description 
of it is mainly a pretence, and not the truth. Mr. Beecher fills his false 
account with invented particulars of what he calls my complaint to him 
of my " business troubles," "loss of pTace and salary," and the like, with 
cognate complaints against him for his supposed agency in bringing about 
these results : whereas he forgets that I had not yet lost my " place and 
salary." and. had not yet come into my " business troubles," nor did I 
then dream that he had conspired with Mr. Bowen to displace me from 
the Independent or the Union, or that any such disaster was then pend- 
ing over my head, particularly as I had only a few days before sighed 
two new contracts securing to me a lucrative connection with those two 
journals for years to come. 

It was not because I had first " lost my place " that I held this inter- 
view with Mr. Beecher, for I did not "lose my place" until after this 
interview was held. Mr. Beecher confesses to an " imperfect memory 
of dates." This imperfection of memory has betrayed him here. My 
interview with him, as he acknowledges, was on Friday evening, Decem- 
ber 30, 1870. This is correct. But it was not until Saturday evening, 
December 31, at nine o'clock at night, during the closing hours of the 
year, that my notification of dismissal came from Mr. Bowen. See the 
Daily Graphic's fac-simile of my letter to Mr. Bowen, January 1, 1871, 
in which I said : 

" I received last evening [that is, not December 30. but 31] your sudden 
notice breaking my two contracts, one with the Independent, the other 
with the Brooklyn Union" 

It is thus plainly proven, as by mathematics, that my interview with 
Mr. Beecher — which he says occurred on account of my having "lost 
iny place and salary " — occurred before I " lost my place and salary.'' 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 549 

and before I imagined that my two contracts — since both, were new and 
fresh, and hardly a week old I— were to be summarily broken. 

Indeed, even when I received, on the night after my interview with 
Mr. Beecher, Mr. Bowen's notice of their fracture, I had no suspicion 
then that Mr. Beecher had meanwhile been using what he now admits 
to have been " his decisive influence to overthrow me," and to entail 
upon me "loss of place and salary." On the contrary, I still supposed 
that Mr. Bowen was more the enemy of Mr. Beecher than me, for he 
had given me abundant reason to believe so. It was not until after Mr. 
Beecher's written apology to me that I learned from his own humble 
and dust-covered lips that he had been guilty not only of ruining my 
home, but of displacing me from my public trusts. 

Let me refer a little more in detail to this interview with 'Sir. Beecher, 
December 30, 1870. to show how thoroughly he has misrepresented it. 

Mr. Beecher describes me as opening to him on that occasion a bud- 
get of particulars touching three points : that I accused him of procur- 
ing my •• downfall " — whereas my downfall had not yet come ; next, 
that he had advised my wife to separate from me — a story of which I 
never heard until I heard it in the Investigating Committee ; and third, 
that I charged him with improper proposals to Elizabeth— which was 
indeed true', but only half the truth, for I informed him in detail of Eliza- 
beth's confession of their adultery. 

I must be repetitiously explicit on each of these points, so that neither 
of them shall escape the reader's mind. 

First, then, touching my " downfall," or " business difficulties," or 
"loss of place and salary," 1 repeat that I had not yet suffered any of 
these losses, nor did I then suppose that such disasters were in store 
for me. 

Next, as to his alleged "advice to my wife to separate from me.'* I 
solemnly aver that Mrs. Tilton has never to this day informed me that 
Mr. Beecher ever gave her any such advice, nor did she so inform the 
committee; that Mr. Moulton, like myself, never heard of such advice 
having been given until we both heard of it. to our surprise, during the 
present inquiry ; and that the only persons who had. as I supposed, ad- 
vised Mrs. Tilton to leave me. were Mrs. Morse and Mrs. Beecher, but 
not Mr. Beecher. 

What evidence does Mr. Beecher now give to show that he ever ad- 
vised Mrs. Tilton to separate from her husband ? 

"I asked permission [he says] to bring my wife to see them (that is, to 
see Mrs. Morse and Mrs. Tilton). . . . My wife [he continues] was ex- 
tremely indignant tow-.irds Mr. Tilton. ... I felt as strongly as she did. 
b».t hesitated, as I always do, at giving advice in favor of separation. 
It was agreed that my wife should give her (Mrs. Tilton) final advice at 
another visit. The next day. when ready to go. she wished a final word, 
but there was company, and the children were present, and so I wrote 



550 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

on a scrap of paper : ' I incline to think that your view is right, and 

that a separation and a settlement of support will be wisest.' " 

Admitting for the argument's sake that Mr. Beecher may have written 
such a scrap of paper (though 1 do not believe he did), the testimony of 
Mrs. Tilton makes no mention of having received such advice from her 
pastor. The only advice to this effect which she mentions she accords 
to her mother and to her pastor's wife, but not to Mr. Beecher. Fur- 
thermore, if Mr. Beecher had given the advice which he pretends to 
have given, Mrs. Morse would have known of it, would have eagerly 
made use of it, and would have urged (perhaps forced) her daughter to 
act upon it. Now, Mrs. Morse gives explicit testimony over her own 
hand that Mr. Beecher uever gave any such advice ; on the contrary, 
she shows that the only advice vfhich Mr. Beecher gave concerning the 
proposed separation was, that Mrs. Tilton should not separate from her 
husband ! I refer to Mrs. Morse's letter to Mr. Beecher, indorsed in his 
own handwriting as having been received from her by him January 27, 
1871, only a few weeks after his apology. Mrs. Morse speaks in that 
letter complainingly to Mr. Beecher, as follows : 

"You or any one else who advises her (Mrs. Tilton) to live with him 
(Mr. Tilton), when lie is doing all he can to kill her by slow torture, is 
anything but a friend" 

It will be seen from the above that at the very time when Mr. Beecher 
pretends to have been suddenly thrown into remorse and despair for 
having given Elizabeth bad advice — namely, to separate from me — 
Elizabeth's mother was writing to Mr. Beecher to chide him because he 
had given, not that advice, but just the opposite ! Mrs. Morse's letter 
accuses me of "killing her daughter by slow torture," and accuses him 
at the same time of advising her against a separation from such a 
brute ! 

In the presence of this letter of Mrs. Morse — who of all persons in 
the world was most solicitous to procure Elizabeth's separation, and 
who would be most likely to know on which side of the question Mr. 
Beecher had advised — I respectfully submit that Mr. Beecher's recent 
and pretended claim to have given such advice, and that this advice was 
the key-note to his four years of subsequent remorse and letter-writing, 
is blown to the winds — and the committee report is whisked away 
with it. 

Third, Mr. Beecher's statement that at this interview of December 
30, 1870, I charged him with making impure proposals to Mrs. Tilton is 
(as I have said) true so far as it goes, but is only a part of the truth, 
for I charged him with adultery. It was this last topic, namely, his 
criminal relations with Mrs. Tilton, and not at all my financial troubles, 
since these had not yet come upon me ; nor his advice to my wife to 
separate from me, of which I had not then heard — it was his criminal 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 551 

association with Mrs. Tilton — this, and this only — that constituted the 
basis of my interview with him on that memorable night. This inter- 
view, I repeat, was held at Mrs. Tilton's request, and my object in hold- 
ino- it was to quiet her apprehension concerning the possible exposure 
of her secret through what both she and I then supposed to be an 
imminent assault upon Mr. Beecher by Mr. Bowen. To, this end I 
informed Mr. Beecher of the confession which Mrs. Tilton had made to 
me six months before, and which it had become necessary for her peace 
— perhaps even for her life — that Mr. Beecher should receive from my 
lips in order that he should so manage his case with Mr. Bowen that no 
danger would arise therefrom of Mrs. Tilton's exposure to the world. 
This was my purpose, and my only purpose, in that interview, as Mrs. 
Tilton and Mr. Beecher knew right well. 

Now, in the light of these facts, thus proved, note Mr. Beecher's false 
statement of them as follows : 

u It was not until Mr. Tilton [lie says] had fallen into disgrace and 
lost his salary that he thought it necessary to assail me with charges 
which he pretended to have had in mind for six months." 

Against the above fallacious assertion I have set the counter testi- 
mony of incontrovertible facts, which I will recapitulate, namely : 

When I resolved to meet Mr. Beecher on Friday, December 30, 
1870, I had just made two new contracts with Mr. Bowen, signing them 
only a few days previous, from which I looked forward to an income as 
large as the salary of the pastor of Plymouth Church. When I sat 
waiting for Mr. Beecher on that night I was in independent circum- 
stances, and expected to be increasingly so for years to come. When 
Mr. Moulton brought him to me that night I had no thought — not the 
remotest — of " financial difficulties " or " business troubles " or " loss of 
place," for I had not yet come to these disasters, nor did I then foresee 
them. When I, as he said, " talked calmly " to him on that night, it 
"was because I had previously demanded his retirement from the pulpit, 
and because this demand had well-nigh broken my wife's heart ; for 
whose sake alone, and for no other reason, I agreed with her to meet him 
face to face in order to inform him that I knew of his intimacy with 
her, and to say to him that, for the sake of this suffering woman and 
her children, I would withdraw the demand upon him to quit the pulpit 
and flee the city, and that Mr. Bowen should have no ally in me in his 
proposed war against his pastor. 

As God is my judge, I solemnly aver that that interview did not 
descend to points of finance, but, on the contrary, touched only two 
points : first, Mrs. Tilton's ruin, which had come through Mr. Beecher ; 
and, second, Mrs. Tilton's safety, which must come through Mr. Beecher 
and myself. 

In that interview, from a little memorandum in my hand, giving dates 



552 THE TKUE HISTORY OF 

and places, I recited to Mr. Beecher Mrs. Tilton's long story as she had 
given it to me in the previous July, and which she had, on the previous 
day, reauthenticated in her note of December 29, which I had put into 
Mr. Moulton's hands to be the basis of his summons to Mr. Beecher to 
meet me for the conference. No extraneous subject did I introduce into 
that single-minded recital ; for only one theme was in my thoughts ; 
and in order that no intruder should interrupt me, or that Mr. Beecher 
should retire before hearing me, I locked the door and put the key into 
my pocket. 

After I delivered my message, I unlocked the door and said to Mr. 
Beecher, " Now that we understand each other, you are free to go. If 
any harm or disgrace comes to Elizabeth or the children, I shall hold 
you responsible. For her sake I spare you, but if you turn upon her, I 
will smite your name dead before the whole world." 

When I ceased speaking he hesitated to leave his chair, but sat with 
bowed head, and with eyes riveted to the floor. At length looking up 
into my face he said : " Theodore, I am in a dream — I am in Dante's 
Inferno." 

I pointed to the door and said again, " You are free to retire." 

In going out lie stopped on the threshold, turned, looked me in the 
face, and asked with quivering lip whether or not I would permit him to 
see Elizabeth once more for the last time. I was about to answer, '.* No, 
never." but remembering my wife's grief, and her expressed wish that 
this interview could have taken place in her presence, I felt that she 
would be better satisfied if I gave him the permission he asked, and so 
I said, " Yes, you may go at once, but you shall not chide Elizabeth for 
confessing the truth to her husband. Remember what I say ; if yon 
reproach that sick woman for her confession, or utter to her a word to 
weigh heavily upon her broken heart for betraying you, I will visit you 
with vengeance. I have spared your life during the last six months and 
am able to spare it again ; but I am able also to destroy it. Mark me," 
I added, " Elizabeth is prostrate with grief — she must hear no word of 
blame or reproach." 

" Oh, Theodore," he said, " I am in a wild whirl ! " 

After these words he retired from the room, and almost immediately 
(as Mr. Moulton has narrated) accompanied that gentleman to my 
house, where (as Mr. Beecher admits) he fell upon Elizabeth with 
"strong language," that is, full of reproach, and procured from her a 
retraction which he dictated to her, and which she wrote at his com- 
mand — her tremor and fear being plainly visible in her handwriting, as 
shown in The Daily Graphic's fac-simile. 

On my return home that evening, I found my wife far from being in 
the condition Mr. Beecher described when he styled her a marble statue 
or carved monument ; but on the contrary she was full of tears and 



THE BKOOKLYN SCANDAL. 553 

misery, saying that he had called upon her, had reproached her in 
violent terms, had declared that she had " struck him dead," and that 
unless she would give him a writing for his protection, he would be 
" tried by a council of ministers." 

She described to me his manner as full of mingled anger and grief, in 
consequence of which she was at one moment so terrified by the look on 
his face that she thought he would kill her. 

She grew nearly distracted at the thought that her womanly and 
charitable effort to make peace had only resulted in making Mr. Beecher 
her enemy and mine. I believe that if he had entered a second time into 
her presence that night she would have shuddered and fainted at his 
approach. Her narrative to me of the agony which he expressed to her, 
of the reproaches which he heaped upon her, and of the bitterness with 
which he denounced her for betraying her pastor to her husband — all 
this tale still lingers in my mind like a remembered horror. 

The above plain statement of facts, fortified by documentary evidence 
proving that my interview with Mr. Beecher occurred before and not 
after my "loss of place and salary," effectually puts an end to the fol- 
lowing passage in the committee's verdict — a passage which constitutes 
one of the principal findings of that strange tribunal. The committee say : 

"It is clear that on the 29th of December, when the so-called mem- 
orandum of confession was procured from Mrs. Tilton, the chief inciting 
cause of that step on Tilton's part was his belief that Mr. Beecher had 
caused him his loss of place, business and repute." 

The above conclusion, drawn by the committee from the false facts 
which I have exploded, must be delivered over to the limbo of those 
remarkable insurance policies touching which Mr. Beecher swore to 
being in profound and perfect health, while at the same time he was on 
the daily edge of death from a hypochondria inherited from his grand- 
father, and from a remorse consequent upon giving bad advice. 

VIII. About one-half of the committee's verdict is based upon an- 
other equally remarkable falsehood, which I shall so completely expose 
that I believe the authors of it will receive the ridicule of a community 
whom they have attempted to deceive. The chief argument by the 
committee is that my real charge against Mr. Beecher was simply " im- 
proper proposals," not " adultery ; " that they never heard of my charg- 
ing him with " adultery " until I trumped up this latter accusation as 
part of a conspiracy which Mr. Moulton and I were prosecuting against 
Mr. Beecher with slow patience and for greed of gain ! Without this 
argument, which comprises one-half the committee's report, they would 
never have been able to make a report at all. But I shall rip this argu- 
ment so completely out of the report that that document will at one 
stroke be torn in twain, and the half which is devoted to this fabrication 
will be cast aside as waste paper. 



554 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

First, to do no injustice to the committee, let me give them the 
chance of stating their argument in their own words, as follows : 

"We believe (say they), and propose to show, from the evidence, that 
the original charge was improper advances, and that as time passed and 
the conspiracy deepened it was enlarged into adultery. The importance 
of this is apparent, because if the charge has been so changed then both 
Tilton and Moulton are conspirators and convicted of a vile fraud, which 
necessarily ends their influence in this controversy. What is the proof 
(they add) that the charge in the first instance was adultery?" 

I cannot understand, except on one ground, how Mr. Beecher's law- 
yers (since they are attendants at his church rnd acquainted with its 
proceedings) should have had the boldness to assume such a position as 
the above, since they must have known that I could disprove their falla- 
cious statement by the official records of Plymouth Church itself. The. 
one ground on which I presume they based their daring assertion was 
their supposition that I possessed no official copy of the papers in a cer- 
tain famous proceeding in Plymouth Church which Mr. Beecher, with 
a rare hypocrisy, describes as his " attempt to keep me from public trial 
by the church." Perhaps Mr. Beecher and his committee thought that 
in this case, too, " the papers had been burned." But I shall not allow 
him to escape " so as by fire." 

Let me explain : 

A few weeks after Mrs. Tilton's confession in July, 1870, and several 
months before Mr. Beecher's apology, I communicated the fact of their 
criminal intimacy to a grave and discreet friend of our family, Mrs. 
Martha B. Bradshaw, of Brooklyn, one of the best known and most 
honored members of Plymouth Church. The same information was 
subsequently given to Mrs. Bradshaw by Mrs. Tilton herself. On the 
basis of this information in the possession of Mrs. Bradshaw, Mr. 
William F. West, a member of Plymouth Church, relying on Mrs. 
Bradshaw to be a witness, indicted me before the church for circulating 
scandalous reports against the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Mr. West's 
charges and specifications, although a matter of notoriety at the time, 
have never yet been published. I herewith commit them to print for 
the purpose of showing that the verdict of Mr. Beecher's committee 
stands disproved in its chief and central allegation by the official 
records of Plymouth Church itself. Mr. Beecher's six committeemen, 
like Mr. Beecher himself, have "bad memories." Let me not attempt 
to portray the mortification of this committee and their attorneys at 
reading the following correct copy of official papers adopted by Ply- 
mouth Church, of which the originals are in my possession : 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 555 

MR. TALLMADGE TO MR. TILTON. 

Brooklyn, October 17, 1873. 
Mr. Theodore Tilton : 

Dear Sir : — At a meeting of the Examining Committee of Plymouth 
Church, held this evening, the clerk of the committee was instructed to 
forward to you a copy of the complaint and specifications made against 
you by Mr. William F. West, and was requested to notify you that any 
answer to the charges that you might desire to offer to the committee 
may be sent to the clerk on or before Thursday, October 23, 1873. 

Enclosed I hand you a copy of the charges and specifications re- 
ferred to. Yours very respectfully, 

393 Bridge Street. D. W. Tallmadge, Clerk. 

COPY 

Of the charges and specifications made by William F. West 
against Theodore Tilton: 

I charge Theodore Tilton, a member of this church, with having cir- 
culated and promoted scandals derogatory to the Christian integrity of 
our pastor, and injurious to the reputation of this church. 

Specifications : 

First — In an interview between Theodore Tilton and the Rev. E. L. L. 
Taylor, D. D., at the office of the Brooklyn Union, in the spring of 1871, 
the said Theodore Tilton stated that the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher 
preached to several (seven or eight) of his mistresses every Sunday 
evening. Upon being rebuked by Dr. Taylor, he reiterated the charge, 
and said that he would make it in Mr. Beecher's presence if desired. 
AVitness : Rev. E. L. L. Taylok, D. D. 

Second— In a conversation with Mr. Andrew Bradshaw. in the latter 
part of November, 1873, Theodore Tilton requested Mr. Bradshaw not 
to repeat certain statements which had previously been made to him by 
Mr. Tilton, adding that he retracted none of the accusations which he 
had formerly made against ,Mr. Beecher, but that he wished to hush 
the scandal on Mr. Beecher's account ; that Mr. Beecher was a bad man, 
and not a safe person to be allowed to visit the families of his church; 
that if this scandal ever were cleared up he (Tilton) would be the only 
one of the three involved who would be unhurt by it; and that he was 
silently suffering for Mr. Beecher's sake. 

Witness : Andrew Bradshaw. 

Third— At an interview with Mrs. Andrew Bradshaw, in Thompson's 
dining-rooms on Clinton street, on or about the 3d day of Amrnst, 1870, 
Theodore Tilton stated that he had discovered that & criminal intimacy 
existed between his wife and Mr. Beecher. Afterward, in November, 
1872, referring to the above conversation, Mr. Tilton said to Mrs. 
Bradshaw that he retracted none of the accusations which he had for- 
merly made against Mr. Beecher. 

Witness : Mrs. Andrew Bradshaw. 

It will be seen from the third specification in the above document 
that I was indicted by Plymouth Church, and that an attempt was 
made to bring me to trial because Ihad said, on the 3d of August, 1870, 
that I had discovered a criminal intimacy between Mr. Beecher and 



556 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Mrs. Tilton. The date mentioned in this specification, namely, the 3d 
of August, 1870, was only thirty days after Mrs. Tilton's confession of 
July 3 of that year! What shall be thought of the report of a so-called 
Investigating Committee of Plymouth Church which, in order to main- 
tain and uphold the pastor's false denial of my true charge against him, 
is compelled, in his defence, to falsify the records of his own church ? 
The committee's question, " "What is the proof that the charge in the 
first instance was adultery ? " meets in the above official document by 
Plymouth Church so point-blank an answer that I am almost tempted 
to return to these six gentlemen the epithets they have put upon Mr. 
Moulton and me, and to say that for their own verdict, judged by their 
own church records, they stand " convicted of a vile fraud." 

The above church record completely nullifies one-half — more than 
half — of the committee's report ! 

IX. In order that I may not need to refer again to Mr. West's 
charge and specifications, 1 may as well append in this place my 
proper comment on Mr. Beecher's extraordinary claim that I owe him 
gratitude for having kept me, as he says, from a " public trial by the 
church." 

Why did Mr. Beecher keep me from a public trial by the church ? It 
was to save, not me, but himself. It was not I, but he, who feared to be 
tried, and who put forth the labors of a Hercules to prevent a trial. And 
with good reason : for, unless Mr. Beecher's case in that perilous hour 
had been conducted by the present committee of six, on their novel 
plan of acquitting at all hazards, the trial would have proven him guilty. 
With wise sagacity, therefore. Mr. Beecher sought to keep me from that 
trial in order to save himself from that ruin. I well remember how, at 
that time, he spoke of his anxious and sleepless nights, full of fear and 
apprehension at the possible failure of his cunning attempt to prevent 
the coming on of a trial which, at the same time, he had to pretend to 
invite ! 

Furthermore. Mr. Beecher. evidently sharing the conviction of Ihe 
committee that I possessed no official copy of Mr. West's charges and 
specifications, ventured to speak of Mr. West's fearful indictment as 
follows, namely, that it — 

" Presented no square issues upon which his (MY. Beecher's) guilt or 
innocence could be tried." 

And yet what issue could be more pointed and direct? If a clergy- 
man is openly accused of adultery, and the indictment gives specifica- 
tions, names, dates, and witnesses, does not the case present a square 
issue? I know whereof I affirm when I say that Mr. Beecher feared and 
dreaded the prospect of that trial, not because the "issues were not 
square," but, on the contrary, because the issues were so sharp and 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 557 

clear-cut that he dared not cast himself on their " rough and ragged 
edge." 

Let me in this connection notice another point. The committee have 
a singular way of arguing that the original charge could not have been 
" adultery," because (as they say) Mrs. Tilton's written retraction in- 
dicated only "improper proposals." With an extraordinary inconsis- 
tency of reasoning, the verdict has the following remarks : 

" It is said, further, that Mr. Beecher confessed the act of adultery. 
Such alleged confession is not consistent with the retraction he received 
that evening from Mrs. Tilton. Is it likely, if the main offence had been 
charged, Mr. Beecher would have been satisfied with anything short of a 
retraction of that?" 

The logic of the above is most pitiable. A clergyman is charged with 
adultery. "He goes to the guilty woman, and demands that she shall 
give him a written retraction. He carries to her bedside paper, pen, 
and ink, and^compels her to phrase this retraction to suit him exactly. 
"What does he make her*say ? Merely that there was no adultery? No, 
he makes her say still more than this — that there has been not even an 
attempt at such. Having appealed to her fears, having (as he admits) 
" used strong language to her," in other words, having intimidated her, 
to do his bidding, he compels her to declare, not only that there was no 
" adultery," but that there was not even an " impure proposal." Is not 
this the most comprehensive retraction possible of the original charge? 
Suppose I — Mr. Beecher's accuser — had given to him a certificate that 
he had never made to my wife an " improper proposal ? " Would he not 
plead such a certificate as abundantly — aye, superabundantly— acquitting 
him of the charge of "adultery?" The committee know well enough 
that the retraction of a charge of " impure proposals " covers — and more 
than covers— the charge of " adultery." The logic of the verdict is un- 
worthy of the name of reasoning. 

The same may be said of another paragraph in this sapient verdict— 
a statement of theirs which I am loath to charge upon these six gentle- 
men as a wilful misrepresentation, and yet it seems as if they had here 
misrepresented me purposely and not by accident. The committee 
quote from their own garbled report of my examination a mention made 
by me of the fact that Mr. Beecher, on the day after sending me his 
apology through Mr. Moulton, visited me at Mr. Moulton's house. The 
committee quote from their report of my remarks the following words : 

" He (Mr. Beecher) burst out in an expression of great sorrow to me, 
and said lie hoped the communication which he had sent to me by Mr. 
Monlton was satisfactory to me. He then and there told Mr. Moulton 
he had done wronjr; not so much as some others had (referring to his 
wife, who had made statements to Mr. Bowen that ought to be unmade), 
and he there volunteered to write a letter to Mr. Bowen concerning the 
facts which he had misstated." 



558 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Now notice the captious use which the committee make of the above 
quotation. They say : 

"If the wrong to which Mr. Beecher refers was adultery, how could 
these words be used in reference to it, ' He hud done wrong ; not so much 
as some others' ? The absurdity of such a claim is clear.'' 

The above comment which the committee make on my words, as any- 
body will see by looking carefully at the words themselves, has no appli- 
cation whatever to my words. When Mr. Beecher said that " lie had done 
me wrong, but not so much as some others had done," he was referring, 
as the report itself shows, not to his crime of adultery, but " to his wife, 
who had made statements to Mr. Bowen which ought to be unmade." The 
committee devote a laborious paragraph to show that if Mr. Beecher had 
done less wrong than others, this "wrong" could not have been "adul- 
tery." The committee themselves, if they had carefully read their own 
quotation from their own report of my examination, would have seen 
that Mr. Beecher, in the above-named interview with me, spoke first of 
the crime for which he had written me the apology of the night before, 
and that he then made a totally distinct and separate reference to an 
additional wrong which he had come that morning to undo — namely, 
the wrong of having given slanderous reports to Mr. Bowen concerning 
myself; a wrong which, Mr. Beecher said to me, he had not committed 
to so great an extent as his wife and Mrs. Morse had done. Promptly 
on the publication of the committee's report of my examination, I pub- 
lished a card saying that this report had been garbled and was incorrect 
at many points. Among the points which I designated to several mem- 
bers of the press, who called upon me at the time, was the bungling 
manner in which the above interview between Mr. Beecher and myself 
was described. Nevertheless, even this bungling report, which the com- 
mittee's lawyers compressed into a shape to please them best, shows, 
even as it stands, that the matter concerning which Mr. Beecher said 
he had done less wrong than his wife was not adultery, since that would 
have been an imputation by Mr. Beecher of criminality on the part of 
his wife, but had sole reference, as the report itself states, to communi- 
cations which Mr. Beecher and his wife had jointly made to Mr. Bowen 
against me, but in which Mr. Beecher had taken a less share than his 
wife. And yet, on the filmy basis of the above misrepresentation of my 
words, the committee have belied their function as judicial inquirers 
by founding an argument to accuse me of conspiracy against a man 
who was himself a conspirator against me, and whose conspiring had 
already accomplished the ruin of my wife and the breaking up of my 
home. 

The committee say further : 

i 
"In the written statement of the offence shown to Dr. Storrs by Tilton 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 559 

and Carpenter, which was made in Mrs. Tilton's handwriting, under the 
demand of her husband, who says he dictated the precise words charac- 
terizing the offence, the charge was an improper proposal." 

I will once again give the committee a direct negative to this state- 
ment, as I did during my examination. The letter above referred to, in 
Mrs. Tilton's handwriting, is as follows : 

"December 16, 1872. 

"In July, 1870, prompted by my duty, I informed my husband that 
Rev. H. W. Beecher. my friend and pastor, had solicited me to be a wife 
to him, together with all that this implies." 

The entire letter, of which the above is the first sentence, was com- 
posed by Mrs. Tilton, except only the above sentence, which was mine. 
I suggested the above form of expression to her, because she was at 
that time in a delicate mood of conscience, and desired to confess the 
whole truth to Dr. Storrs, in hope thereby to end the troubles. She 
said she had grown tired of telling falsehoods, and if Dr. Storrs was to 
give wise counsel he ought to know the whole case. It was no unusual 
thing for her to be in the state of mind which she exhibited on that 
occasion. There was always an undercurrent of conscience running 
through all her thoughts, and she frequently lamented to me her sad 
fate to be condemned to ''live a lie." Accordingly, she sought in the 
above letter to Dr. Storrs to tell the whole truth — not a part of it. I 
was unwilling that she should make such a damaging confession. She 
insisted that she must cease her falsehood at some time, and that that 
was a proper time. It was to meet this demand of her conscience that 
I framed for her the sentence above quoted — a sentence not inconsistent 
with the exact truth, because the words " together with all that this 
implies" might be as readily taken to imply that she had yielded to Mr. 
Beecher's solicitation as that she had rejected it. Dr. Storrs, in reading 
the above letter, seemed to take for granted from its terms that Mrs. 
Tilton had not yielded to this solicitation, and I did not undeceive him. 
I repeat that the opening sentence of the letter was framed by me ex- 
pressly to satisfy Mrs. Tilton's desire to confess the whole truth — a 
desire on her part which 1 contemplated with pain and apprehension, 
and from which I sought to shield her by the above form of words. The 
committee are guilty of little less than sharp practice in commenting 
on this phraseology as they have done in their verdict, for I was 
explicit to give them the exact explanation which I have given here. 

But nothing is so astounding to me in the committee's report as the 
following statement bearing on the same point : 

"The further fact [they say] that Tilton treated the matter during 
four years as an offence which could properly be apologized for and for- 
given, is wholly inconsistent with the charge in its present form." 



560 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

The committee express the same idea in a still more specious phrase- 
ology, as follows : 

"If Moulton [say they] understood the charge to be adultery, then 
he is entitled to the credit of the invention or discovery that this crime 
can be the subject of an apology." 

The above sentiment, thus put forth by the committee, may possibly 
represent the club-house code of morals and of honor, but it seems to 
me that a church committee is bound to hold that no crime or wrong- 
doing should be beyond the Christian forgiveness of those against whom 
it is committed, and, in particular, that the crime in the present case 
should have reminded a churchly tribunal of the immortal maxim of 
Him who said of the woman taken in adultery, "Neither do I condemn 
thee." 

X. Since, however, the Plymouth Church committee abandons the 
Christian code of morality on this* subject, and substitutes a more popu- 
lar and cruel opinion — which I think should be tempered with greater 
lenity towards women who err— I will convict Mr. Beecher by the world's 
code of honor in such cases. It is a prime law of conduct among what 
are called "men of the world" that if a man has received a lady's ex- 
treme gift he is bound to protect her reputation and to shield her 
against any and every hazard of exposure. What, then, in view of this 
law, is the just measure of obloquy which " men of the world," accord- 
ing to their own etiquette of behavior, should visit upon Mr. Beecher, 
who after having subdued a lady to his sexual uses for a period of more 
than a year, at last, in a spirit of bravado and desperation, publicly ap- 
points a committee of six men, with two attorneys, to inquire into the 
facts of her guilt, involving her inevitable exposure and ruin? Even 
Mr. Beecher's worldly-minded champion, Mr. Kinsella, though accused 
of the same kind of seduction, has proved more forbearing to his 
victim. 

XI. Mr. Beecher, after giving his lifetime (according to his sister, 
Mrs. Hooker) to the study of the free-love philosophy ; after having sur- 
reptitiously practised free love in my own house, in the corruption of a 
Christian wife and mother; after having confessed to Mr. Moulton and 
me more adulterous alliances than this one ; — after all that, Mr. Beecher 
goes back in his fictitious defence to the closing years of my connection 
with the Independent, and speaks of me in the following terms: 

" His (Mr. Tilton's) loose notions of marriage and divorce begin to be 
shadowed editorially." 

To this I make two replies — one general, the other specific. 

In general, I say that I have never entertained loose notions of mar- 
riage. My notions of marriage are those which are common throughout 
Christendom. But I rejoice to say that my notions of divorce are at 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 561 

variance with the laws of my own State, and are expressed in the statutes 
of Wisconsin. I have strenuously urged the abrogation of the New 
York code of divorce (which is for one cause alone), and have asked for 
the substitution of the more liberal legislation of New England and the 
West 

Next, I reply in particular that the first article which I wrote in the 
Independent that elicited any criticism for what Mr. Beecher now calls 
my " loose notions of marriage and divorce." was a defence of Mrs. 
Richardson in the McFarland trial. Bu' if I was wrong in my estimate 
of that case, Mr. Beecher was far more wrong than I, for he went to the 
Astor House and at Richardson's dying bed performed a marriage cere- 
mony between that bleeding sufferer and a lady who was then the 
divorced (or undivorced) wife of the assassin. Mr. Beecher cannot con- 
demn me for anything that I said growing out of that case without still 
more severely condemning himself. In proof of this statement I cite 
the testimony of Mr. William 0. Bartlett, now one of Mr. Beecher's 
lawyers, defending Mr. Beecher for a far more unpardonable seduction 
than that whereof Mr. Richardson was accused. Mr. Bartlett published 
in the New York Sun on the day after Mr. Beecher's performance of the 
Astor House marriage the following biting characterization of Mr. 
Beecher's conduct on that occasion : 

WHAT MR. BEECHER'S CHIEF ATTORNEY THINKS OF HIM. 

[From the New York Sun, December 2, 1869.] 

" The Astor House in this city was the scene on Tuesday .afternoon 
of a ceremony which seems to us to set at defiance all those sentiments 
respecting the relation of marriage which regard it as anything intrin- 
sically superior to prostitution. The high priest of this occasion was 
Henry Ward Beecher. ... As the great and eloquent John Whipple 
said : 'He who enters the dwelling of a friend and. under the protection 
of friendship and hospitality, corrupts the integrity of his wife or 
daughter, by the common consent of mankind ought to be consigned to 
an immediate gallows.' . . . Consider, married men of New York! hus- 
bands and fathers ! by what frail and brittle tenure your homes are 
yours. If you fail in business — and it is said that ninety-five out of one 
hundred business men fail — then your neighbor may charm away your 
.wife, and the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher stands ready to marry 'her to 
the first libertine who will pay— not in affection, but in gold and green- 
backs—the price of her frail charms. . . . Yes, it is the pious, the popu- 
lar, the admired, the reverend Henry Ward Beecher, who comes boldly 
and even proudly forward, holding by the hand and leading Lust to her 
triumph over Religion ! Who can read the narrative and not wish that 
Plymouth Church were not sunk into the ground until the peak of its 
gable should be beneath the surface of the earth ? " 

The above was the judgment of Mr. Beecher's present chief counsellor 
touching Mr. Beecher's action in the celebrated case concerning which, 
for some comments of mine in the Independent, Mr. Beecher has now 
36 



562 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

the effrontery to accuse me of having in 1869, "shadowed" in my edito- 
rials " loose notions of marriage and divorce." 

XII. Mr. Beecher with equal inconsistency seeks to becloud me with 
the odium which attaches to Mrs. Woodhull's name. I am justly 
entitled to a severe — perhaps to an unsparing — criticism, by the public, 
for having linked my name with that woman, and particularly for hav- 
ing lent my pen to the portrayal of her life in the exaggerated colors in 
which I once painted it in a biographical sketch. But among all my 
critics who have stamped this brochure with their just opprobrium, I 
have never yet found any one who has denounced me for it half so 
severely as I have condemned myself. Nobody shall have my consent 
to defend me for having written that sketch. I refuse to be defended. 

But having made this explicit statement against myself — which justice 
requires — I am entitled to tell the precise story of my relations with 
Mrs. Woodhull, and to compare these with Mr. Beecher's relations with 
the same woman, at the same time, and to the same end. 

About a year after Mrs. Tilton's confession to me, and about a half a 
year after Mr. Beecher's apology, and after Mr. Moulton had put forth 
the many strenuous efforts to which Mr. Beecher's letters written dur- 
ing this period bear witness, a new and sudden enemy of our safety 
appeared before the public in the person of Victoria C. Woodhull, who 
published in the World and the Times the card quoted in my sworn 
statement, saying that a " distinguished clergyman in a neighboring city 
was living in concubinage with the wife of another public teacher in the 
same city." 

On the publication of this card Mrs. Woodhull — to whom I was'then 
a stranger — sent for me and informed me that this card referred to Mr. 
Beecher and Mrs. Tilton. I was stunned by the intelligence, for I 
instantly felt that the guilty secret which Mr. Moulton was trying to 
suppress was in danger of coming to the surface. Taking advantage of 
my surprise on that occasion Mrs. Woodhull poured forth in vehement 
speech the hundred or more particulars (most of which were untrue) 
that afterwards constituted the scandalous tale of November 2, 1872. 

Meanwhile the fact that she possessed such knowledge, and had the 
audacity to fling it into my very face, led me to seek Mr. Moulton at, 
once for counsel. We felt that some influence must be brought to bear 
upon this strange woman to induce her to suppress the dangerous tale. 
We thought that kindness was the best influence that we could use. 
Mr. Beecher concurred with us in this view, and we all joined in the 
policy of rendering her such services as would naturally (so we sup- 
posed) put the person who received them under obligations to the doers. 

In carrying out this policy Mr. Beecher joined with us and approved 
our course. He made Mrs. Woodhull "s personal acquaintance, and 
strove by his kindly interest in her to maintain and increase her good- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 563 

will. He says that he saw her but three times, but his "memory of 
dates and details is bad ; " and I myself have been in her presence with 
him more times than that. He took uncommon pains to impress upon 
her his respectful consideration, and though I never heard them discuss 
each other's views to any prolonged extent, I once heard him say to her 
that the time might come when the rules by which thoroughbred 
animals are brought to perfection would govern the relations of men arid 
women. 

I declare explicitly that Mr. Beecher fostered the acquaintance which 
Mr. Moulton and I made with Mrs. Woodhull. He urged us to main- 
tain it, and begged us not to lose our hold upon her ; he constantly 
inquired of us as to the ascendency which we held over her, and always 
said that he looked as much to our influence with Mrs. Woodhull to 
keep back the scandal from publication as to any other possible means 
of future safety, both for my family and his. 

When Mrs. Stowe made an elaborate attack on Mrs. Woodhull in the 
Christian Union, Mr. Beecher, who had not seen the proof-sheets before 
publication, was in great distress until Mr. Moulton and I reported to 
him that we had seen Col. Blood (Mrs. Woodhull's husband), and had 
urged him to publish a kindly instead of a revengeful reply to Mrs. 
Stowe's attack. Mr. Beecher's gratification, which he expressed at this 
evidence of our power with Mrs. Woodhull and her husband to prevent 
mischief, was of no ordinary kind. Mr. Beecher said to me on that 
occasion that every service which I could render to her was a service to 
him. 

Among the services which I thus rendered — for his sake, because for 
Mrs. Til ton's — was the writing of an elaborate pamphlet on woman suf- 
frage, which cost me a week of hard labor. Another service was the 
biographical sketch to which I have already alluded, and which, so far 
as I was concerned, was the work of only a single day, for my task con- 
sisted only in the rewriting of a sketch already prepared by her hus- 
band, the original manuscript of which I still possess. The third and 
last public service which I rendered to her was to preside at Steinway 
Hall on an occasion when I had some expectation that Mr. Beecher 
himself would fill the chair. 

My entire acquaintance with Mrs. Woodhull was comprised between 
the month of May, 1871, and the month of April, 1872— less than a 
year — and during a great part of that time I was absent from the city 
on a lecturing tour. During my whole acquaintance with her I never 
heard from her lips an unladylike word nor noted in her behavior an 
unchaste act. Whatever she may have since become (and I know not), 
she was then hiffh in the esteem of Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stan- 
ton. Isabella Beecher Hooker, and other persons whose judgment of 
what constitutes a good woman T took to be sound and final. The story 



564 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

of any ill-behavior between Mrs. Woodbull and me she herself has done 
me the justice — unasked by me — to deny with the proper indignation 
which belongs to an outrage against the truth. I broke with her sud- 
denly in the spring of 1872, because she threatened to attack several of 
the lady advocates of the woman suffrage cause, whom I knew and hon- 
ored. In a frank conversation which I had with her at that time, full 
of vehemence on my part. I denounced her proposed course, washed my 
hands of all responsibility for it and her, and have never seen her since. 
But in thus voluntarily breaking my acquaintance and co-operation 
with Mrs. Woodhull, I did not have the approval either of Mrs. Tilton 
or Mr. Beecher, both of whom felt that I had acted unwisely in parting 
from her so suddenly. Mr. Beecher, in particular, feared that the future 
would not be secure if Mrs. Woodhull were left unrestrained by Mr. 
Moulton or myself. Mrs. Tilton. though she grew to have a personal 
antipathy towards Mrs. Woodhull, nevertheless took several occasions 
to show friendliness towards her, and once sent her a gift-book inscribed 
with the words : 

"To my friend, Victoria C. Woodhull. Elizabeth R. Tilton." 

Moreover, Mrs. Tilton wrote to me from Schoharie, June 29, 1871, 
expressing her satisfaction with an article which I had written in the 
Golden Age, the object of which was to give to Mrs. Woodhull an honora- 
ble place in the woman suffrage movement. This article was entitled 
" A Legend of Good Women," and the women v/hom I named in it 
were Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Julia Ward Howe, Mary 
A. Livermcre, Lucy Stone, Paulina Wright Davis, Victoria C. Wood- 
hull, and Isabella Beecher Hooker. In this article I spoke of all those 
persons in such complimentary terms as I then thought their lives and 
labors deserved. The article was dated June 20, 1871. Mrs. Tilton's 
letter approving it contained the following words : 

"The 'Legend' seems an ingenious stroke of policy to control and 
hold together the fractious elements of that noble band." 

In view of such a letter, with such a date — namely, a year after Mrs. 
Tilton's confession, and a half a year after Mr. Beecher's apology — I 
need not comment on the pretence that one of the causes of the trouble 
which led to the scenes of December, 1870, ending with Mr. Beecher's 
apology, was my relations with Mrs. Woodhull — whom I never saw till 
half a year afterwards, and whom Mrs. Tilton herself was compliment- 
ing at a still later period as one of "a noble band.'" 

Mr. Beecher's extraordinary statement that he besought me to part 
from Mrs. Woodhull is not only wholly untrue, hut even after I had 
parted from her, which I did in the spring of 1872, he wanted me to re- 
new my good-will towards her for the sake of the influence which he 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 565 

thought I could exert over her plans and purposes — an influence for the 
suppression of the scandal and for his personal safety. 

It was not until after the publication of her malicious story, Novem- 
ber 2, 1872, that Mr. Beecher besought me to print a card publicly dis- 
avowing Mrs. Woodhull ; but his sole object in then wishing me to do 
so was that my disavowal would be a denial of Mrs. Woodhull's charge 
incriminating his character. 

I have thus given an exact history of my personal relationship with 
Mrs. Woodhull, and of the motive which inspired my services towards 
her. Now that I look back upon those days and sacrifices, my only 
marvel is that I did not commit acts of greater folly for the sake of pre- 
venting the exposure of my family secret. I ought to have known that 
such efforts could not, by their very nature, be successful, except for a 
short time. We do not learn everything in a day. But, however much 
I am to blame for my association during a few months with Mrs. Wood- 
hull, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher is not the man to criticise me for 
it, for he participated in it, urged it forward, was the first person to ex- 
press to me his regret at its discontinuance, and never asked me to 
u disavow" that dangerous woman until she published a story which he 
wanted me to deny for his own sake. 

I will simply add that my relations with Mrs. Woodhull differed in no 
kind, almost in no degree, from Mr. Beecher's relations with her, except 
that I saw her more frequently than he, and was less smooth-spoken 
to her face, and less insulting behind her back; nor can Mr. Beecher 
now throw over me the shadow of Mrs. Woodhull's darkened name, 
without also covering his own with the same cloud. 

XIII. In my sworn statement I made oath to the fact that Mr. 
Beecher confessed to me his criminal intimacy with Mrs. Tilton. I will 
state the substance of this confession, which was often renewed and 
repeated. 

On the night of December 30, 1870. during my interview with him at 
Mr. Moulton's house, he received my accusation without denial, and 
confessed it by his assenting manner and grief. 

In the apology written January 1, 1871, which he sent me through 
Mr. Moulton, his contrition was based on the fact that both Mr. Moulton 
and I had become acquainted with his guilt. 

During the subsequent personal interview which took place between 
Mr. Beecher and myself at Mr. Moulton's house a few mornings after- 
ward, Mr. Beecher in set terms spoke to Mr. Moulton and myself of the 
agony and remorse which he had suffered within the past few days at 
having brought ruin and blight upon Elizabeth and her family. He 
buried his face in his hands and wept, saying that he ought to bear the 
whole blame, because from his ripe age and sacred office he was unpar- 
donably culpable in leading her astray. He assured me that during the 



5(36 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

earlier years of his friendship for Elizabeth he and she had no sexual 
commerce with each other, and that the latter feature of their intimacy 
had been maintained between them not much over a year and less than 
a year and a half. 

He said to me that I must do with him what I would — he would not 
resist me — but if I could possibly restore Elizabeth to my love and re- 
spect he would feel the keen edge of his remorse dulled a little into less 
pain. He asked me if I would permit the coming- pew-renting to pro- 
ceed, and said that if I insisted on his resignation he would write it 
forthwith. He reminded me that his wife was my bitter enemy, 
and would easily become his own, and begged that she might not be in- 
formed of his conduct. He said that he had meditated suicide, and could 
not live to face exposure. He implored me to give him my word that 
if circumstances should ever compel me to disclose his secret, I would 
give him notice in advance, so that he might take some measure, either 
by death or flight, to hide himself from the world's gaze. He said that 
he had wakened as from a sleep, and likened himself to one sitting dizzy 
and distracted on the yawning edge of hell. He said that he would pray 
night and day for Elizabeth, that her heart might not be utterly broken, 
and that God would inspire me to restore her to her lost place in my 
home and esteem. 

All this, and more like it, took place in the interview of which I 
speak, including his voluntary proposition to mend certain ill work 
which he had done in giving to Mr. Bowen false reports about me. 

Shortly afterward. I sent for Mr. Beecher to come to my house to 
hold an interview with me on the subject which I shrink from mention- 
ing here, yet which the truth compels me to state. In June. 1869, a 
child had been born to Elizabeth R. Tilton. In view of Mrs. Tilton's 
subsequent disclosures to me, made July 3, 1870 — namely, that sexual 
relations between Mr. Beecher and herself had begun October 10, 1868 — 
I wished to question Mr. Beecher as to the authenticity of that date, in 
order to settle the doubtful paternity of the child. This interview he held 
with me in my study, and during a portion of it Mrs. Tilton was present. 
They both agreed on the date at which their sexual commerce had 
begun— namely, October 10, 1868, Mrs. Tilton herself being the au- 
thority, and referring again, as she had done before, to her diary. 

Certain facts which Mr. Beecher gave me on that occasion, concern- 
ing his criminal connection with Mrs. Tilton — the times, the places, the 
frequency, together with other particulars which I feel a repugnance to 
name — I must pass over ; but I cannot forbear to mention again, as I 
have stated heretofore, that Mr. Beecher always took the blame to him- 
self, never imputing it to Elizabeth ; and never till he came before the 
Investigating Committee did he put forth the unmanly pretext that 
Mrs. Tilton had " thrust her affections on him unsought." 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 567 

On numerous occasions, from the winter of 1871 to the spring of 1874, 
Mr. Beecher frequently made to me allusions, in Mr. Moul ton's presence, 
to the abiding grief, which, he said, God would never lift from his soul 
for having corrupted so pure-minded a woman as Elizabeth Tilton to 
her loss of honor, and also for having violated the chastity of friend- 
ship towards myself as his early and trusting friend. 

Never have I seen such grief and contrition manifested on a human 
countenance as I have often seen it on Henry Ward Beecher in his self- 
reproaches for having accomplished Elizabeth's ruin. The fact that he 
suffered so greatly from constant fear of an exposure of his crime made 
me sometimes almost forget the wrong he had done me, and filled my 
breast with a fervid desire to see him restored again to peace with him- 
self. At every effort which I made in conjunction with Mr. Moulton 
to suppress inquiry into scandal, Mr. Beecher used to thank me with a 
gratitude that was burdensome to receive. He always put himself be- 
fore me in so dejected, humble and conscience-stricken a mood, that if I 
had been a tenfold harder man than I was 1 could not have had the 
heart to strike him. When I wrote the letter to the church declining 
to appear for trial, on the ground that I had not been for four years a 
member, he met me the next day at Mr. Moulton's house, and, catching 
my right hand in both of his, said with great feeling, " Theodore, God 
himself inspired you to write that letter." 

When, at a later period, in the same house, he gave me the first inti- 
mation of the coming Council, he said : " Theodore, if you will not turn 
upon me. Dr. Storrs cannot harm me, and I shall owe my life once 
again to your kindness." 

I could record many different expressions and acts of Mr. Beecher 
like those which I have above given, to show his perpetual and never- 
relieved distress of mind through fear of the exposure of his adultery, 
accompanied by a constant and growing fear that I could not really 
forgive him, and must sooner or later bring him to punishment. 

I ought to say that I sometimes half suspected that Mr. Beecher's 
exhibitions to me of profound dejection and heart-break were not real 
but feigned, being of the nature of appeals to my sympathies, which 
(he knew) were always readily aroused at the sight of distress. But Mr. 
Moulton never admitted any doubt of Mr. Beecher's real penitence, and 
this was one of the reasons why Mr. Moulton sought so zealously to 
shield this sorrowful man from the consequences of his sin. 

I close this section by. declaring, with a solemn sense of the meaning 
of my words, that Mr. Beecher's recent denial under oath that he com- 
mitted adultery with Mrs. Tilton is known to him, to her, to Mr. Moul- 
ton, to me, and to several other persons to be an act of perjury. 

XIV. Perhaps there is no single touch of hypocrisy in Mr. Beecher'3 
statement that exceeds his following allusion to his domestic happiness : 



568 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

" His (Mr. Tilton's) affairs at home [says Mr. Beecher] did not promise 
that sympathy and strength which makes one's house, as mine has teen, 
in times of adversity, a refuge from the storm and a tower of defence." 

In no ordinary controversy would I be justified in taking up such an 
allusion as this of Mr. Beecher to his own home in contrast with mine, 
as mine once was. But the truth constrains me to do so now. Mr. 
Beecher's purpose, thus adroitly expressed, is to set himself before the 
public in the light of a man who has so happy a home of his own that 
he does not need to covet his neighbor's wife. 

But, on the contrary, as Mrs. Tilton has repeatedly assured me, and 
as she has assured confidential friends to whom her confessions have 
been made, Mr. Beecher had a house which was not a home — a wife 
who was not a mate; and hence he sought and found a more wifely 
companion. He often pictured to Mrs. Tilton the hungry needs" of his 
heart, which he said Mrs. Beecher did not supply ; and he made his 
poverty and barrenness at home the ground of his application to Mrs. 
Tilton to afford him the solace of a supplemental love. 

In the days when I was confidential with Mr. Beecher, he used to 
pour in my ears unending complaints against his wife, spoken never 
with bitterness, but always with pain. He said to me one day, " Theo- 
dore, God might strip all other gifts from me if he would only give me 
a wife like Elizabeth and a home like yours." One day he walked the 
streets with me saying, " I dread to go back to my own house ; I wish 
the earth would open and swallow me up." He told me that when his 
daughter was married, Mrs. Beecher's behavior on that occasion was 
such as to wring his heart ; and when he described her unwifely actions 
during that scene he burst into tears, and clenched his hands in an 
agony which I feared would take the form of a revenge. He has told me 
repeatedly of acts of cruelty by Mrs. Beecher towards his late venerable 
father, saying to me once that she had virtually driven that aged man 
out of doors. A catalogue of the complaints which Henry Ward 
Beecher has made to me against his wife would be a chapter of miseries 
such as I will not depict upon this page. 

Many of his relatives stand in fear of this woman, and some of them have 
not entered her house for years — as one of Mr. Beecher's brothers lately 
testified in a public print. I have seen from one of his sisters a private 
letter concerning the marital relations of Mr. and Mrs. Beecher which 
it would be scandalous to reproduce here. And yet this man, in order 
to give to the ignorant public one of human nature's most plausible 
reasons why a man should not invade another's house, paints a false 
picture of the sweet refuge of his so-called happy home. 

I know that my allusion to Mr. Beecher's home-life is rough and 
harsh, but I know also that it is true ; for as I pen it down there arises 
in my mind a vivid recollection of the many years of my daily associa- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 569 

tion with Mr. Beecher, during which he taught me to sympathize with 
him for the very reason that his house, instead of being what he now 
calls it, " a refuge from the storm," was more often the storm itself, 
from which he sought refuge in mine. 

Mr. Beecher has charged me with blackmail. This charge wore a 
cold and keen point for a single morning, but soon melted away like an 
icicle in the sun. The angry indictment had so brief a vitality that the 
life was all gone from it before the committee wrote their verdict. In 
that verdict the committee did not repeat that charge, knowing that it 
could not be sustained. They made only the faintest possible allusion 
to the subject, by suggesting that " innocent men have sometimes been 
blackmailed," but they even neglected to mention that Mr. Beecher was 
one of these. 

Now, although the committee have dismissed the subject of blackmail 
as too tenuous to be made a part of their special pleadings, I am not. 
willing that this outrageous pretence shall be allowed to pass into swift 
and easy oblivion. I will do what the committee had not the courage to 
do — I will revive Mr. Beecher's charge of blackmail, in order that I may 
take apart, piece by piece, the ingenious but fallacious argument which 
he put forth to sustain this visionary indictment. 

In the first place, before Mr. Beecher ventured on such an extrava- 
gant accusation he prepared the way for it by misrepresenting me as a 
man reduced to such poverty and desperation that I would be likely to 
resort to blackmail. As a preliminary requisite for the coming charge 
Mrs. Tilton was instructed to say that I had deprived her of food and 
fire — a .statement showing a condition of distress not only on her part, 
but on mine ; a distress so great that (as hunger is said to break through 
stone walls) would presumably tempt me to commit murder, highway 
robbery, or blackmail. 

But it so happens that at the very time when (according to this de- 
scription) I was without the means to furnish food and fire to my family, 
namely, the winter of 1870-71, I had several thousands of dollars in cash 
to ray account on the books of an eminent commercial house in New 
York — a larger sum than I ever had at any one time in loose money 
even in my most prosperous days. And Mr. Beecher Icneiv of this fact 
at the time, because when Mrs. Morse wrote to him the letter in which 
she falsely and impudently said that if my honest debts were paid I would 
not be worth a cent, Mr. Beecher was then informed by one of the cus- 
todians of my money, first, that I had no debts unpaid, and next that I 
had several thousands of dollars in cash to my account. 

I distinctly declare, therefore, that the story put into Mrs. Tilton's 
mouth by the persons who advised her to say that she had not the means 
wherewith to feed and warm herself and family, was a fabricated state- 
ment put forth to he one of the necessary preliminaries to the subse- 
quent charge of blackmail. 



570 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

After thus falsely misrepresenting me as passing the winter of 1870-71 
without food and fire, Mr. Beecher's second preliminary to the intended 
charge of blackmail consisted in his saying that in the following winter 
of 1871-72 I was driven in disgrace from the public platform, and that 
my lecturing engagements were brought to naught. In vivid language 
he portrays my supposed distress at this time thus : 

"The winter following (1871-72), Mr. Tilton [he says] returned from 
the lecturing field in despair. Engagements had been cancelled, invita- 
tions withdrawn, and he spoke of the prejudice and repugnance with 
which he was everywhere met as indescribable.' 

The above statement is not only the direct opposite of the truth, but 
when I first came upon it in the midst of Mr. Beecher's defence, and be- 
fore I saw the end to which it pointed — namely, that it was a step in the 
argument to prove me a man in sufficient desperation to resort to black, 
mail— I could not understand the mysterious purpose of his coining such 
an unnecessary fiction ; but soon afterwards I saw that, as Mrs. Tilton's 
invention of her privations of food and fuel came first in order, so next 
came Mr. Beecher's equally fanciful invention of my lecturing losses and 
disgrace. Both of these alleged events — one occurring one winter, the 
other in the next— were to create the desperate determination of mind 
on my part which was to turn me into a blackmailer. 

Mrs. Tilton's falsities (I call them hers, always remembering that they 
were not of her own prompting) have already been sufficiently answered. 
I need only to answer Mr. Beecher's. And if he does not blush for his 
statement above quoted when he reads the following refutation of it, 
then he must be lost to a proper regard for that strict truth which should 
form the basis of any and every accusation which one man brings against 
another. 

NOTE FROM MR. TILTON'S LECTURE AGENT. 

Cooper Institute, New York, September 1, 1874. 

Dear Sir : — In reference to our books. T find that you filled more lec- 
ture engagements during the season of 1871-72 than any other of the one 
hundred or more lecturers, readers, etc., on onr list, save one. 

Only three of your engagements were cancelled, and two of these were in 
the West, where the great Chicago fire had almost paralyzed the lecture 
business. All lecturers in the AVest that season suffered from cancelled 
engagements. In seven places you were called to give a second lecture, 
and in one place a third. Very truly yours, 

American Literary Bureau. 

Theodore Tilton, Esq. Charles Mumford, Vice-President. 

Mrs. Tilton, Avho accompanied me at my request during a portion of 
the above-named lecturing trip (for I thought that if she were thus seen 
travelling with me, the stories against her would receive in that way a 
most effectual rebuff), wrote home the following: 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 571 



MRS. TILTON TO MRS. 



Watertown, Massachusetts, March 1, 1872. 
My Sweet Friend : — .... Theodore has about twenty engagements 
remaining, which will bring us home the last week in March. We have 
met with exceedingly nice people, and always Theodore reinstates him- 
self against the prejudices grownup the past year 

Your Dear Elizabeth. 

It will thus be seen that Mr. Beecher's declaration that I had lost my 
lecturing engagements, and was heaping up prejudices against myself 
wherever I went, is flatly contradicted by Mr. Mumford, my lecturing 
agent, who says that of his hundred lecturers and readers I had more en- 
gagements than any other person save one; and Mrs. Tilton testifies 
that instead of my giving rise to prejudices against myself I was every- 
where clearing them away. 

What becomes of Mr. Beecher's case when its principal statements 
are thus, one after another, seen to be utterly baseless, and therefore 
utterly base ? 

Mr. Beecher — after first instigating Mrs. Tilton to say that in the 
winter of 1870-71 onr house was a hovel of privations, and then permit- 
ting himself to declare that in the following winter of 1871-72 I was hunted 
from the public rostrum and deprived of rny livelihood — had by these 
two misrepresentations plausibly reduced me. in his statement, to the 
condition of a man whose next alternative would be to levy blackmail. 

After these progressive preparations for his intended indictment, Mr. 
Beecher next exhibits the same cat-footed care in presenting .his succes- 
sive charges. 

Thus he cautiously pretends, before directly preferring his main accu- 
sation of blackmail, that I made use of him to extort from Mr. Bowen 
the sum of $7000. 

There is something to provoke a smile in this insinuation, for I have 
yet to hear of any man. living or dead, who has been able to extort 
from Mr. Bowen a cent of money not justly due. 

What is the story of the 87000 -which I received from Mir. Bowen? It 
was a just debt which Mr. Bowen owed me and paid me. and that was 
the whole matter : but he did not pay me through Mr. Beecher's in- 
fluence, nor through any other influence save the necessary obligation 
devolving on a man who owes money to pay it. The transaction was 
as follows : According 1 to the contracts made between Mr. Bowen and 
myself in the latter part of December. 1870. I was to edit the Brooklyn 
Union for five years, at an annual salary of $5200. together with ten 
per cent, of the profits ; and I was to furnish to the Independent a 
weekly article at an annual salary of $5200, making, from these two 
sources, a yearly income estimated by Mr. Bowen at $14,000 and up- 
wards. These two contracts contained the following provisions, namely : 



572 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

They could be annulled by the death of either party, or by the consent 
of both parties, or by one party giving- to the other half a year's notice 
of intention to do so, or at once by either party paying- to the other a 
forfeit equal to half a year's income, say about $7000. Mr. Bowen, 
through Mr. Beecher's influence (as Mr. Beecher admits), chose to ter- 
minate these contracts at once. He had a perfect right to do this on 
paying the stipulated forfeit of $7000. If these contracts had been ter- 
minated in this manner by me instead of by Mr. Bowen, I would have 
been legally bound to pay Mr. Bowen a half year's income, or $7000. In 
like manner, the contracts having- been terminated by Mr. Bowen, he was 
bound to pay the same amount to me. The contracts showed on their 
face exactly what they meant, and were as peremptory as a note of hand. 
The only possible doubt as to the precise amount of money due under 
them was, How much did ten per cent, of the Union'' s profits amount 
to? Mr. Bowen, who has a clever business faculty for submitting all 
money claims to arbitration, on the economical ground that arbitrators 
usually compromise by cutting the disputed claim in two, like a knife 
through a peach — giving each party half — sagaciously urged me to ar- 
bitrate. This proposition I first declined, fearing that my just claim 
would be cut in two like the peach. This declinature I made by the ad- 
vice of Mr. Moulton, who was not willing that I should lose a penny of 
my just due. Meanwhile Mr. Bowen, who knew something but not 
everything of Mr. Beecher's relations with Mrs. Tilton, naturally felt 
that I would be sensitive about collecting my claim through a lawyer 
and in a court, from my unwillingness to involve Mr. Beecher and thereby 
compromise my family. Accordingly Mr. Bowen felt safe in dilly-dally- 
ing concerning the payment beyond my point of patience. At length I 
instructed Mr. F. A. Ward, of the law firm of Reynolds & Ward, of 
Brooklyn, to stop Mr. Bowen's sharp practice and collect my claim at 
once in court. About the same time, but wholly unconnected with this 
affair. I wrote an article for the Golden Age, correcting, in behalf of my 
western readers (among whom T had just been travelling as a lecturer), 
some unfounded reports that my retirement from the editorial chair of 
the Independent had not been (as Mr. Bowen publicly said it was in De- 
cember. 1870) "to my honor," but was from some cause not honorable 
to myself. The proof-sheet of this article I showed in advance to Mr. 
Moulton, who, seeing that it disagreeably introduced the name of Mr. 
Beecher, begged me on that account to suppress it. He showed it to 
Mr. Beecher. who shrank from the prospect of its publication because it 
contained Mr. Bowen's charges against him. Mr. Moulton, finding Mr. 
Beecher greatly concerned and full of trepidation, conferred, at Mr. 
Beecher's request, with Mr. Horace B. Claflin, who, having some myste- 
rious influence over Mr. Bowen (which I am not able to this day to un- 
derstand), advised Mr. Bowen to settle my claim at once and not permit 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 573 

me to put it into the courts, since legal proceedings would reflect equally 
on Mr. Bowen and Mr. Beecher by exhibiting their mutual grievances in 
a glaring light to the public. 

It was wholly in Mr. Beecher's interest, and not in mine, that Mr. 
Moulton and my legal advisers withheld my claim of $7000 from a public 
court, and handed it over to private arbitration. The following letters 
will prove this point to a demonstration : 

MR. MOULTON TO MR. CLAFLIN. 

Brooklyn, April 1, 1872. 
My Dear Mr. Claflin : — After full consideration of all interests, 

other than Theodore's, I have advised him to arbitrate, etc 

Cordially yours, Francis D. Moulton. 

JUDGE REYNOLDS TO MR. TILTON. 

Law Offices of Eeynolds & Ward, | 
April 1, 1872. j 

My Dear Mr. Tilton : — On strictly legal grounds I should strenu- 
ously advise you against any submittance to arbitration of your differ- 
ences with Mr. Bowen. I consider your case so clear in law that there 
is no reason, so far as you are concerned, for diverting its prosecution 
from the regular course. 

But there are weighty moral considerations arising out of the fact 
that other parties might be seriously involved, which lead me to hope 
you may secure your rights through the proposed arbitration. 

You can only do so, however, by obtaining not only the money due 
you but a personal vindication at the hands of Bowen. A trial of the 
case in a public court would afford such vindication, and if you forego 
that, Mr. Bowen must expect to clear you himself from the imputations 
which his conduct has cast upon you. Yours very truly, 

George G. Reynolds. 

MR. WARD TO MR. TILTON. 

Law Offices of Reynolds & Ward, | 
April 2, 1872. } 

My Dear Sir : — I fully share in the reluctance which I believe 
Judge Reynolds has expressed, that this matter should be left to arbi- 
tration. 

The case is as clear as daylight, and the arbitration is entirely in the 
interest of a third party, not yourself. 

I am acting of course as your legal adviser; if you are acting as the 
eounsel of a third party, I have nothing to say. 

Personally I would not consent to the arbitration unless Bowen would 
pay the full amount due under the contract, and give a full justification 
besides of your integrity. 

In other words, there is no nossible object in arbitration, as all your 
rights can be clearly established in a court of law. 

Yery truly yours, F. A. Ward. 

The " third party" mentioned in the above letters was none other than 
the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. It was for Mr. Beecher's sake — for 



574 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

his alone, not mine — that my just claim against Mr. Bowen was held 
in abeyance for a year and a half, and was then finally kept out of court 
and settled privately, through Mr. Moulton's fear that a public lawsuit, 
which Mr. Bowen seemed at one time to invite, for the sake of the mis- 
chief which it promised to disclose against Mr. Beecher, would result in 
irretrievable damage to Mr. Beecher's name. Mr. Moulton's special 
apprehension was that Mr. Bowen, cherishing a secret hostility to his 
pastor, was tempting me to carry the case into court for the purpose of 
involving Mr. Beecher in a public scandal. 

When, therefore, Mr. Beecher says that I made use of him to extort 
$7000 from Mr. Bowen, he speaks what is not true. The truth is, that 
my just claim of $7000 would have been paid long before it was except 
for Mr. Moulton's reluctance to give Mr. Bowen an opportunity to use 
legal proceedings as an indirect means of gratifying his supposed re- 
vengeful feelings against Mr. Beecher. 

It was Mr. Claflin who persuaded Mr. Bowen to withhold the case 
from court and submit it to arbitration. The three arbitrators were 
Horace B. Claflin, James Freeland and Charles Stores. They met at 
the house of Mr. Moulton, who was present, during the interview. Mr. 
Bowen and I appeared before them. I made no claim for a specific 
amount, but simply laid my two contracts on the table, and said, 
" Here are two contracts, which Mr. Bowen and I mutually signed. 
Read them, and judge for yourselves how much money is due me." 
Mr. Claflin then took out his lead-pencil, asked how much the profits 
of the Union were, footed up the figures, requested Mr. Bowen and 
myself to retire into the front parlor for a few minutes, summoned us 
back shortly afterward, and announced that the arbitrators, after having 
read the contracts, had unanimously decided that Mr. Bowen owed me 
$7000. Mr. Bowen thereupon took from his pocket a blank check, filled 
it out on the spot for $7000. and handed it to me, saying that the next 
week's Independent should contain a handsome tribute to me at the head 
of the editorial columns. 

Before this proposed tribute was printed I had meanwhile sent to Mr. 
Bowen a note asking him to correct certain false reports concerning my 
retirement from the Independent. In reply to this note he sent me pri- 
vately the following : 

MR. BOWEN TO MR. TILTON. 

Mr. Theodore Tilton : 

Sir: — I shall publish, with great pleasure, in the Independent, your 
letter to me, followed by such editorial remarks as, I trust, will please 
you and your numerous friends. 

We have been bound together as co-workers for many years, and I 
now most solemnly declare to you tliat never, for one moment, have I 
entertained a single unfriendly feeling towards you. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 575 

To-day I rejoice that we may meet and clasp hands as friends. 

If I have done you any wrong in the past, I most sincerely regret it, 
and ask you to overlook and forget it. Henceforth let us have peace 
and good-will between us, each doing his own work in his own way, as 
it seemeth best in the sight of God. 

We shall meet now as friends, and, I hope, as Christian friends ; and 
no act of mine shall disturb our friendly relations. 

With many good wishes for you and yours, I am truly your friend, 

Henry 0. Bowen. 

In addition to the above letter, Mr. Bowen sent me, within a day or 
two, the following : 

MR. BOWEN TO MR. TILTON. 

Mr. Theodore Tilton : 

Sir : — I authorize you to say at any time, at your discretion, and 
on my authority, that your retirement from the Independent and 
Daily Union was for no unfriendly reasons, or any desire on my part to 
reflect on your character or standing ; and furthermore, that whatever 
tales or rumors may exist to your injury, I most sincerely regret and 
condemn. 

With a sincere desire for your best present and future welfare and 
prosperity, and that of your respected family, I remain your friend, 

Henry C. Bowen. 

Brooklyn, April 3. 1872. 

Simultaneously with the receipt of the above private letters from Mr. 
Bowen came the Independent, containing, at the head of its editorial 
columns, a very handsome personal tribute to myself, which, as Mr. 
Moulton quoted it in substance, I need not reproduce here. In this 
article Mr. Bowen referred to what he was pleased to style " my long 
and brilliant services to the Independent" and he said in it : 

"We have felt too kindly towards him to allow the Independent to 
countenance the abuse heaped upon him by some other papers." 

Furthermore, as if expressly to furnish me in advance with the best 
possible material for answering Mr. Beecher's charge that I had extorted 
money from Mr. Bowen, he (Mr. Bowen) spoke particularly as follows : 

" Our disagreement with him on some religious and other questions 
does not prevent our recognizing his honest purposes and his chivalrous 
defence of what he believes to be true, as Avell as those qualities of heart 
which make him dear to those who know him best." 

I have thus quoted Mr. Bowen's effectual answer to the charge that I 
had wronged him in any way; but I am happily able to quote Mr. 
Beecher's own answer to it, which will be still more triumphant ! Mr. 
Beecher was so gratified at my settlement with Mr. Bowen and the 
encomium of me in the Independent, that he copied it into the next 
week's Christian Union, with an added eulogy of his own, as follows: 



576 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

MR. BEECHER PRAISES MR. TILTON". 

[From Mr. Beecher's article in the Christian Union, April 17, 1872.] 

" This honorable testimony from Mr. Bowen [says Mr. Beecher] ought 
to clear away the misconceptions which have shaded the path of this 
brilliant young writer. We hare never parted with our faith that time 
woidd reconquer for Theodore lilton the place in journalism, literature 

and ref >rm to which his talents and past services entitle him 

Upon this testimony of* trie estimation in which his principles and char- 
acter are held by a wise and strong man, who was closely associated with 
him for fifteen years in the conduct of the Independent, the public must 
needs put aside prejudices of judgment which they have permitted to 
cloud this young orator and writer. Those who know him best are the 
most sure that he is honest in his convictions, as he is fearless in their 
utterance, and that he is manly and straightforward in the ways in which 
he works for what seems to him best for man and for society. 

" We trust that the gold in the Golden Age will not grow dim, but 
that, dropping its drops in the refining fires, it will shine with the lustre 
of gold seven times refined and purified." 

I leave the above article by Mr. Beecher, written two years ago by 
his own pen, in his own journal, touching the settlement of this very 
disputed claim with Mr. Bowen concerning the identical $7000 now in 
question — I leave this article by Mr. Beecher to confute Mr. Beecher's 
recent pretence that I used him to extort this money from Mr. Bowen ! 

Mr. Beecher's next step in the fanciful argument to prove me a black- 
mailer is his mention of the payment to Mr. Moulton of certain sums of 
money amounting to $2000. I had nothing to do with this money or 
any part of it. But I happen to know that it went, either in whole or 
in part, to pay the girl Bessie's school bills at the Steubenville Seminary, 
Ohio. (See receipt signed by the principal.) 

This child came to my house a dozen years ago as a waif, bearing the 
name of McDermott, knowing neither father nor mother, nor relative, 
nor circumstances of her birth, nor her age, concerning all whom and 
which she remained in total ignorance for years until, after many efforts, 
I traced her parentage, and learned that her true name was Turner, 
which she has since borne. 

This unfortunate child, when she lived in my family, was afflicted fre- 
quently with strange glooms, so that she sometimes passed days 
together in sullen silence without speaking to any one in the house, 
then bursting gayly into an incessant noise ; and at night she would 
often fall into a species of nightmare which would control her so power- 
fully that her moans and cries would alarm the house. 

Miss Anthony, who knew her well, describes her (though I think a 
little too roughly) as a " half-idiot, into whose head it was impossible to 
instil principles of truth." 

My father and mother in their joint card, from which I have already 
quoted, dated Keyport, N. J., August 30, 1874, refer to this child as 
follows : 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 577 

"The girl Bessie, before she was sent to boarding-school at the West, 
was often an inmate of our house, and we were well acquainted with her 
character at that time. We grieve to say that this girl was guilty of 
such ill conduct in our family, including falsehoods and insults to us, 
that in 1870, when she went from our house, we forbid her entering it 
again." 

My wife's letters used to contain frequent allusions to her troubles 
with Bessie, which were of so vexing a kind that Mrs. Tilton often 
doubted the rightfulness of keeping such an eccentric child in the house, 
for fear of her evil influence on our children. For instance, Mrs. Tilton, 
in a letter to me dated February 6, 1867. speaks of this troublesome girl 
as follows ; 

"Libby [says Mrs. Tilton] continues to be the only disturber of the 
peace of our household. Saturday and Sunday are the time usual for 
her moods, and as the little girls grow older she wins them less and less 
to herself, owing to her unfortunate disposition. They do not love her 
nor get along pleasantly. I am perplexed lest my children grow irrita- 
ble through her influence over them." 

The above expresses a frequent complaint of Mrs, Tilton against 
Bessie ; and yet as my wife was a kind-hearted and self-sacrificing woman 
— especially zealous to do good to lowly and unfortunate persons — she 
could never permit herself to dismiss Bessie, and send her forth helpless 
into the wide world. A thousand times over has Bessie expressed her 
gratitude to Mrs. Tilton and me for having rescued her from some horri- 
ble fate which she used to fancy would have been hers had not our 
family given her a home. Nor do I believe that she would have proved 
an ingrate to me had she not been made a tool in Mrs. Morse's ingen- 
ious hands for working out her scheme of a divorce for Elizabeth, by 
breaking down my reputation. It will be remembered that Bessie wrote 
to Mrs. Tilton, January 20, 1870, saying : 

" Mrs. Morse has repeatedly attempted to hire me by offering me dresses 
and presents to go to certain persons and tell them stories injurious to 
the character your husband." 

The young girl whom Mrs. Morse " bribed," Mrs. Tilton " deceived," 
as is seen by Mrs. Tilton's letter to Mrs. P., dated November 8, 1872, as 
follows : 

" I have mistakenly felt obliged to deceive Bessie these two years that 
my husbaud had made false accusations against me, which he never has 
to her nor any one," 

The young girl — "bribed" by Mrs. Morse and " deceived " by Mrs. 
Tilton, and always the easy instrument of either — became suddenly one 
day the terror of both, for she overheard a conversation between Mrs. 
Tilton and myself, in which allusion was made to Mrs. Tilton's sexual 
intimacy with Mr. Beecher. The committee, in their verdict, admit that 
37 



578 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

the girl overheard this remark, for they quote her as using the following 
words : 

" He (Mr. Tilton) said she (Mrs. Tilton) had confessed to him that she 
had been criminally intimate with Mr. Beecher. She identified the date 
at which she overheard the remark. The question was put to her, 
•When was that?' and the committee received her answer, 'This all 
occurred on the day that we went back in the fall of 1870.' " 

After overhearing this remark, the young tell-tale went to several 
members of the family and reported it with her prattling tongue. She 
also went to Mr. Beecher and did the same. Mr. Beecher, in his state- 
ment, acknowledges that Bessie came to him; but, with that disregard 
of the truth which characterizes his entire defence, he changes the story 
which she came to him to tell, and makes it appear that her disclosure 
was not what the committee admit, namely, that she had heard of Mr. 
Beecher's criminal relations with Mrs. Tilton, but quite another tale. 
The same reluctance which Mr. Beecher has since had to put the true 
story of Bessie's errand into Bessie's recent testimony, he long ago 
manifested at having her tell it to our friends and relatives. Such a 
tell-tale tongue was dangerous to Mr. Beecher's peace. Accordingly, 
no sooner had Mr. Moulton undertaken the task of organizing Mr. 
Beecher's safety, than one of the first necessary " devices " to this end 
was the removal of Bessie to a safe distance from Brooklyn. So she 
was housed, at Mr. Beecher's expense, in a western boarding-school for 
a term of years. The money which Mr. Beecher paid for Bessie is all 
the money which I ever heard (until recently) of his paying either 
directly or indirectly in consequence of his association with my family 
or with this scandal. 

After Bessie was put to school one of her first acts — and this wholly 
destroys the false statement that I ever sought to injure her— was to 
write me a letter of thanks and gratitude for her school privileges, on 
the supposition that J was her benefactor. This letter I did not answer, 
because I thought it not prudent to undeceive the child as to her pecu- 
niary relationship to Mr. Beecher, believing that her knowledge of this 
fact (if she should learn it) would only increase the very mischief which 
we all sought to hide. Moreover, I did not wish to take to myself an 
expression of thanks for benefactions which another man had made. 
Accordingly, I sent Bessie no answer to her letter. 

Some time afterwards, however, a proposition was made to Bessie by 
a lady in Marietta, Ohio, one of Mr. Beecher's friends, to the effect that 
a young hunchback in that town, who had money enough to support a 
wife but who found it difficult to find a girl who would marry him, was 
willing to take Bessie out of school and marry her. The moment I 
heard of this " device " I wrote to Bessie, giving her such good counsel 
as I thought the occasion demanded, warning her against marrying any 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 579 

one whom she did not know or respect or love. In reply to this letter 
she wrote me seven or eight school-girlish pages, which I still possess, 
dated " Steubenville, January 13, 1873," beginning : " Mr. Tilton, my 
dear friend," acknowledging my letter and the admonitions which it 

contained ; describing to me her astonishment at Mrs. 's proposal 

to her to marry the deformed stranger ; expressing her repugnance to 
marry such a disfigured person ; and ending her long letter to me as 
follows : 

" I should have written you many times [she says] and told you how 
much I enjoyed and appreciated being here at school, but as I had writ- 
ten you one letter and you had not answered it, I dreamed you did not 
care to hear how J was getting along." 

In Bessie's letters to my wife, with whom she corresponded regularly, 
she often addressed to me kindly messages, and on one occasion spoke 
of sending one of her schoolmates on purpose to be introduced to me. 

I mention these trifles to relieve this foolish girl in part from the 
odium which attaches to her of having spoken with falsehood and in- 
gratitude of a man who never showed her anything but kindness, and 
of whom I know she would never have thought of saying an ungrateful 
word until taught, four years ago, to do so by Mrs. Morse, who then in- 
vented for a bad purpose the tales which the young tale-bearer has since 
been instructed to repeat for a worse. 

The habit of story-telling which Mrs. Morse instilled into this maid's 
mind is still further illustrated in the false statement which Bessie made 
to the editor of the Pittsburgh Leader, a marked copy of which journal, 
of August 21, 1874, has been sent to me, containing a statement made 
by Bessie in that city, as follows : 

" Her tuition and board, she said, were paid out of her own money, 
and that Mr. Tilton held $1000 as her guardian." 

I never was her guardian, nor had she ever any money of her own, 
nor did I ever hold any in trust for her. 

This story— so wholly unnecessary and apparently without any pur- 
pose—is of a piece with the other shallow and false tales which this 
partly irresponsible girl has since promulgated concerning Mrs. Stanton, 
Miss Anthony, and myself. 

It is not strange, however, that Bessie, under the influence of the 
deception habitually practised upon her by Mrs. Tilton, and under the 
inspiration of her own native and unfortunate instinct in the same 
direction, and having long ago fallen into the snare of Mrs. Morse, and 
more recently into the manipulation of Mr. Beecher's lawyers— it is not 
strange, I say, that throiurh all these influences she should have been 
easily fashioned into a wiliin<r tool in their hands for the reproduction 
of the false testimony which Mrs. Morse long a<ro fabricated, and which 



580 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Mrs. Morse's own regard for consistency has required that Bessie should 
repeat afresh in the same old form. 

My regret is that this shallow-minded girl, in permitting herself to be 
used by these people to my discredit, finds her name brought into the 
general ruin in which they have involved their own- 
How much of Mr. Beecher's $2000 has been spent on Bessie Turner, 
I do not know ; but I do know that almost every letter which Bessie 
has written to Mrs. Tilton for the last three or four years has asked for 
money; I know, also, that this money came through Mr. Moulton from 
Henry Ward Beecher; and I know still further that the sole purpose 
of* Mr. Beecher's paying this money, and the sole purpose of Mrs. Tilton's 
keeping Bessie " deceived," was because this girl accidentally overheard 
four years ago the remark which she repeated to the committee, and 
which the committee admit, namely, a disclosure of the criminal inti- 
macy between Mrs. Tilton and Mr. Beecher. 

I must therefore put upon Bessie the burden of blackmail, so far at 
least as the school-bills go, say the whole or a large part of the aforesaid 
$2000. 

The next step in Mr. Beecher's untruthful indictment against me 
brings me to the mortgage. 

On the 1st of May, 1873, Mr. Beecher deceived his wife by obtaining 
her signature to a mortgage on his house ; and he has since attempted 
to deceive the public by saying that the $5000 which she thus helped 
him raise from a Brookl}-n bank was an extortion by Mr. Moulton for 
blackmail in my behalf. If Mr. Beecher had succeeded in proving 
(which he did not) that I had used him to extort $7000 from Mr. 
Bowen, and that I then had levied on him (as he likewise charged) suc- 
cessive assessments amounting to $2000. he might reasonably have 
expected, on the basis of these two robberies of him by me, to prove me 
guilty, through Mr. Moulton, of a third. 

Before Mr. Beecher made this charge Mr. Moulton, with a straight- 
forward honesty which does not belong to a blackmailer, had already set 
forth a plain and business-like acknowledgment or receipt of $5000 
from Mr. Beecher in May. 1873 — being a sum contributed by Mr. Beecher 
unbeknown to me, through Mr. Moulton. for the Golden Age. This is 
not nil the money which Mr. Moulton contributed to the Golden Age, 
but it is all which he derived in any way from Mr. Beecher for that pur- 
pose. I never knew or dreamed that Mr. Beecher had made through 
Mr. Moulton such a contribution until I first learned of it, as the general 
public did, two months after I had ceased to be the owner of that 
journal. 

In June last, a quarter of a year before Mr. Moulton gave to me or to 
the public this intelligence of the $5000. the Golden Age, with its good- 
will, -subscription list, office fixtures, and debts, together with Mr. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 581 

Beecher's unknown share of contributed capital, was sold by rae for a 
nominal sum. I have thus been saved the mortification of feeling my- 
self at any time, even for a day or an hour, the conscious possessor of 
Mr. Beecher's money. I have pride enough to say that were 1 clothed 
in the rags of beggary and perishing with hunger, I would not accept a 
penny from Mr. Beecher for food or raiment. Had I known of this 
man's surreptitious gift to the Golden Age I would have returned it to 
him, saying, " Thy money perish with thee ! " 

Mr. Beecher trifles with the truth and is merely playing a bravado's 
part when he says I tinkled his gold in my pocket, and sent him in 
return a mock message of good-will. I sent him that message, not in 
mockery, but in earnest, one day last summer, shortly after the publi- 
cation of the tripartite covenant, followed as that was by the pressing 
of Mr. West's threatening charges, and these in turn by the rumors of a 
future council. Mr. Beecher was reported to me to be in a state of pro- 
found depression, bordering on despair. Mr. Moulton begged me to 
speak some word to the stricken man to prevent him from sinking into 
hopeless gloom. I remembered a favorite text with Mr. Beecher, which 
I often "heard him use years ago, and I sent it to him one Sunday 
morning, written on a scrap of paper, thus : 

"H. W. B.— Grace, mercy, and peace. T. T." 

The next time I saw him he told me that this line, greeting him in 
his pulpit, had shone like a sunbeam through his mind during all that 
morning's service, and that I would never know how greatly it had 
cheered him. He added also that the least word of kindness from me 
always had the power to reanimate him like wine. This message of 
mine to Mr. Beecher has since been held up to ridicule by his attorneys, 
but when Mr. Beecher thanked me for sending it he was in no mood of 
ridicule, but only of gratitude. I told the committee that I had sent to 
him at other tknes of his despondency other messages of like import ; 
and I hope that so long as I live I shall always be able to do the same 
in similar circumstances, even to an enemy. Little did I suspect that 
in sending such a message to Mr. Beecher — like a straw to a drowning 
man — I was thereby furnishing him with materials out of which lie 
would construct a future charge against me of blackmail. 

I must not forbear to mention that the suggestion that Mr. Beecher 
should contribute money to the Golden Age came, not from Mr. Moulton 
but from Mr. Thomas Kinsella, editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, who, 
having made a similar offer of a larger sum to the husband of a wife 
whom he seduced, naturally felt, perhaps, that all men who have com- 
mitted similar crimes have no alternative of safety except to purchase 
with money their exemption from exposure. 

I have asked myself the question whether Mr. Beecher and Mr. Kin- 



582 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

sella deliberately sought by such gifts to entangle me in their toils, and 
perhaps I would be rash if I were to acquit them of such a charge ; for 
the appearances are against them in one particular, namely: both Mr. 
Beecher and Mr. Kinsella are simultaneously to be tried in court as 
seducers, and both have meanwhile simultaneously accused me of black- 
mail. The joint attack which these two gentlemen thus made upon me 
constrains me to relate the following circumstances : 

On the Saturday before my Sworn Statement was read to the com- 
mittee, and while the public were expecting it with much anxiety, Mr. 
Kinsella called at my house, and in a long and earnest interview with 
me, in which he expressed in warm terms his appreciation of what lie 
called my high intellectual and moral character, begged me to withhold 
from the committee my forthcoming statement. He said to me em- 
phatically : "Mr. Tilton, I know the justice of your case; Mr. BeecluT 
has himself admitted to me his guilt ; he has wronged you most foully ; 
I acknowledge it all. But remember that he is an old man ; his career 
is nearly ended, and yours has Only just begun. If you will withhold 
your forthcoming statement, and spare this old man the blow which you 
are about to strike him, I will see that you and your family shall never 
want for anything in the world." 

1 declined Mr. Kinsella's polite proposition. 

A few weeks afterward, while the public were similarly expecting Mr. 
Moulton's statement, Mr. Kinsella's business partner, Mr. William C. 
Kingsley, sought and obtained an interview with me, in which he urged 
me to use my influence with Mr. Moulton to secure the suppression of 
his statement, as Mr. Kinsella had sought the suppression of mine. 
Mr. Kingsley freely admitted to me Mr. Beecher's guilt, not from per- 
sonal knowledge, but only from assured belief, derived (as I understood) 
from Mr. Kinsella. Mr. Kingsley's argument with me was that if Mr. 
Moulton's statement were added to mine, Mr. Beecher would be " struck 
dead." " What, then," asked Mr. Kingsley, " will happen to Mr. Moul- 
ton and yourself? Be assured," he said, " the world will never forgive 
either of you for your agency in destroying Henry Ward Beecher." At 
the close of this interview Mr. Kingsley expressed his sympathy with 
me for the pecuniary losses which lie said he knew I must have sus- 
tained, growing out of the calamity which Mr. Beecher had brought upon 
my name and popularity, after which, feeling that I was perhaps a man 
to be dealt with like a member of the Legislature, Mr. Kingsley be- 
nignantly said to me — and he repeated it in Mr. Moulton's presence — 
that " I needed only to give him (Mr. K.) twenty-four hours' notice and 
he would be happy to make me a friendly token of his appreciation in 
the shape of $5000." 

Now, when it is remembered that Mr. Kinsella first suggested the idea 
that Mr. Beecher should contribute money to the Golden Age, and that 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 583 

Mr. Kingsley, Mr. Kinsella's co-proprietor of the Eagle, made to me a 
direct offer of money to purchase the suppression of the truth against 
Mr. Beecher, I think the public at large will put a new construction on 
the joint charge which Mr. Beecher and the Eagle have made against 
me of blackmail! 

If it be thought strange that the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle should 
privately admit Mr. Beecher's adultery (as Mr. Kinsella has often done 
at club-houses and card-tables), and that he should at the same time 
publicly proclaim in his newspaper Mr. Beecher's innocence, let it be re- 
membered that Mr. Kinsella is not the only editor in this neighborhood 
who, on this question, expresses one opinion in private and another in 
public : Mr. Kinsella shares this prerogative with the editor of the New 
York Tribune. 

45 Finally," says Mr. Beecher, adding the cap-sheaf to his argument, 
"a square demand and threat was made to one of my confidential friends 
that if $5000 more was not paid, Tilton's charges would be laid before 
the public." 

Mr. Beecher's weapon, which he draws in these words, is struck at one 
of the most honest and truthful of men — Mr. Francis B. Carpenter. As 
soon as Mr. Carpenter heard this accusation in his summer camping- 
ground in the woods of Lewis county, in this State, twenty-five milea 
from a post-office, he sent to New York the following message: 

" This charge against me is a lie, concocted since Mr. Tilton's state- 
ment." 

Mr. Beecher, in order to communicate the impression that Mr. Car- 
penter is a man capable of machinations (though, on the contrary, his 
character is of uncommon guilelessness and simplicity), made the fol- 
lowing singular statement concerning Mr. Carpenter : • 

" I recollect [says Mr. Beecher] but one interview with him that had 
any peculiar significance. He came to see me once when the Council 
was in session and our document was published. There was a phase in- 
troduced in it that Tilton thought pointed to him. and that night was in 
a bonfire flame and walked up and down the street with Moulton. I was 
at Freeland's and in comes Carpenter, with his dark and mysterious eyes. 
He sat down on the sofa, and, in a kind of sepulchral whisper, told me 
of some matters. Says I : That is all nonsense ; that it meant . . . 
and . . . and Carpenter was rejoiced to hear it, and then went out." 

Mr. Beecher's bugaboo paragraph about Mr. Carpenter, with its omi- 
nous stars and blanks, shall be explained ; and the explanation will 
prove little to the credit of a clergyman who condescends to tell not only 
great falsehoods but small. I had read in that evening's Brooklyn Union 
the document sent by Plymouth Church to the Council. There was an 
allusion in that document, as there printed, which prompted me to send 
to Mr. Beecher, through Mr. Carpenter, the following message : 



584 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

MR. TILTON TO MR. CARPENTER. 

No. 174 Livingston Street, 1 
March 25, 1874. } 
Mr. Francis B. Carpenter : 

My Dear Sir: — As you are a friend both to Mr. Beecher and myself, 
I request you to call his attention to the following paragraph which 
occurs in an official paper adopted by his church this morning, and 
reported in the Brooklyn Union this evening: 

" It was not given to us always to be indifferent when Sanballat and 
Tobias mocked — still less when our own familiar friends, in whom we 
trusted, which did eat of our bread, lifted up the heel against us." 

You will do me the favor to ask Mr. Beecher whether or not the 
above allusion to Sanballat or Tobias was pointed directly or indirectly 
at myself. Furthermore, please say to him, in my behalf, that I will 
give him the opportunity to undo such an impression, if he wishes to 
embrace it. If not, I shall feel at liberty to take such notice of it as I 
think my own self-respect requires. 

Truly yours, Tueo. Tilton. 

Mr. Carpenter, on bearing the above message to Mr. Beecher, received 
from him. in reply, the statement: "No, I did not refer to Theodore; 
for Sanballat and Tobias are Storrs and Budington." 

Before Mr. Carpenter came away, Mr. Beecher, apparently forgetting 
that lie had already made one answer, wrote another to be sent to me, 
as follows : 

MR. BEECHER TO MR. CARPENTER. 

My Dear Mr. Carpenter: — The paragraph which appeared in the 
Union respecting Sanballat and Tobias was not in the copy read to the 
Council, nor in the printed copy distributed, as you will see by the copy 
given you herewith. 

A number of things in the original draft were stricken out as having 
too much feeling towards our antagonists. This was among them. It 
was directed to Biuk and Dioignt Johnson. But I protested against it 
and thought it was struck out before going to the printer. When the 
"revise "came this morning I had it struck out of the ten or twelve 
copies — and the regular edition does not have it. But nothing was 
further from the mind of the writer, and nothing further from the 
thought of the committee, and certainly from my thought, than that it 
referred to Mr. Tilton. Yours cordially, H. W. Beecher. 

I have little respect for any man. and particularly for a clergyman, 
who can trifle with the truth in the manner indicated by the two dif- 
ferent answers which Mr. Beecher gave to Mr. Carpenter within the 
same hour. 

Mr. Beecher's whole charge against Mr. Carpenter is as false as the 
spirit of the above note. 

Nor can I understand how Mr. Henry M. Cleveland, who has visited 
my office many times in company with Mr. Carpenter, and has always 
professed to be a warm friend to both Mr. Carpenter and myself, could 
consent to be referred to by Mr. Beecher as having received from Mr. 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 585 

Carpenter a proposition of blackmail. My associates in the Golden Age 
will testify that during the last year or more, whenever Mr. Cleveland 
lias called to see me (as he has frequently done) he has always expressed 
a cordial interest in my welfare, and evinced an esteem for me of a more 
than ordinary kind. He has repeatedly referred to the pleasure which 
he professed to take in my society, at his country residence. Moreover, 
only a few months ago, being one of the proprietors of the Christian 
Union, and finding that that paper was in need of one hundred thousand 
dollars to carry it forward, he intimated to me his intention to quit Mr. 
Beecher as " a sinking ship." About the time of my publishing the 
Bacon letter, Mr. Cleveland called on me, and, taking from his pocket 
a letter from his wife, said that if he felt at liberty to read it to me, 
which he did not, I would be glad to hear that that good lady sympa- 
thized with my side of the controversy as thus far developed. During 
the session of the present committee, Mrs. Tilton came home on the 
night of her first meeting with it, and quoted to me a remark which 
Mr. Cleveland had made to her, in the presence of the whole committee, 
in these words : " Mrs. Tilton, you don't know how much I love your 
husband." And yet this is the gentleman who — having a pecuniary 
interest in Mr. Beecher as his business partner — undertakes, for the 
furtherance of a desperate defence, to accuse his intimate friend, Mr. 
Carpenter, of being a conspirator, with me, another friend, in the heinous 
crime of blackmail ! 1 do not wonder that neither Mr. Cleveland nor 
any of his five associates in the committee had the courage, in making 
up their verdict, to perpetuate a charge of which they grew so quickly 
ashamed. 

Let me adduce a few further particulars touching this charge of black, 
mail ; for it is not enough that the committee have abandoned it — they 
ought never to have entertained it. 

Mr. Beecher, after mortgaging his house, May 1, 1873, " mentioned 
that fact," he says, " to Oliver Johnson." 

This statement leads me to refer to a striking evidence of the pro- 
found effect which this information — namely, my conspiring in a scheme 
of blackmail — must have produced on Mr. Johnson's mind. Among 
my souvenirs is a beautiful little book, printed on tinted paper, entitled 
" In Memoriam," containing a funeral tribute spoken by me at the bier 
of Mrs. Mary A. Johnson, wife of Oliver Johnson, on June 10, 1872. 
It was about a year afterward — May 1, 1873 — that Mr. Beecher mort- 
gaged his house, and " mentioned the matter to Oliver Johnson." On 
the ensuing June 4 of that year, when the mortgage must have been 
a fresh and recent topic of reflection by all who had been informed of it 
as a blackmailing operation, Mr. Johnson wrote me an affectionate letter, 
from which I make the following quotation : 



58G THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

My Dear Theodore:— .... I have often thought that when I 
should be dead I should wish you to speak words of comfort to those 
who love me, and pay a tribute to my memory. 

Yours lovingly, Oliver Johnson. 

Mr. Johnson omitted a good opportunity in the above note to accuse 
me of blackmail, if he then believed me guilty of it. 

Moreover, a few months afterwards, Mr. Beecher neglected a striking 
opportunity to expose me, when, on the 31st of October, 1873, just 
about six months after the mortgage, I ascended the platform in Ply- 
mouth Church and asked if the pastor had any charges to make against 
me, and he replied in a most conspicuous manner as follows : 

"Mr. Tilton asks me if I have any charges to make. I have none." 

If Mr. Beecher then knew me to be a blackmailer, who had extorted 
a mortgage from him of $5000, why did he not brand me for it on the 
spot, and have me mobbed at once, as the same congregation afterwards 
mobbed Mr. Moulton ? 

It will not be forgotten that during the proceedings of the Congrega- 
tional Council, held in the spring of 1874, a year after my alleged extor- 
tion of money from Mr. Beecher through Mr. Moulton, Mr. Beecher 
wrote a letter to Mr. Moulton, in which, while denouncing so good a 
man as the Rev. Dr. Storrs, he at the same time took occasion to pay a 
tribute to myself in these words : 

" Tlicodorc, who has borne so much" etc. 

These are Mr. Beeeher's words, written a year after the mortgage ! 
Against all Mr. Beeeher's present pleadings and pretences these words, 
" Theodore, who has borne so much," show that when Mr. Beecher 
thought of me in private he thought of my forbearance, which gives the 
lie to his public pretence of my extortion. 

It only remains for me to say further touching the charge of black- 
mail — a charge impossible to attach for a day to a man like Mr. 
Moulton, whose honor is above such infamy and whose wealth is above 
such temptation — that this charge is the false defence of a desperate 
man who, in thus basely pretending that his best friend blackmailed 
him, thereby unconsciously confesses the guilt which would have made 
blackmailing possible. 

Wherefore, as the committee dismissed the charge of blackmail from 
their verdict, so I dismiss it here. 

XY. Mr. Beecher says that I have " garbled his letters." I pre- 
sented in my sworn statement brief extracts from his letters simply 
because I had not access to the letters complete. But the letters com- 
plete bear more severely against him than the fragments which I 
quoterT. I now ask the public to judge him by his complete letters, not 
by my extracts, for he will thus fall into far greater condemnation. 



THE BKOOKLYjS SCAKDAL. 587 

When in my Bacon letter I quoted a few lines of Mr. Beecher's apology, 
it was said that if I had added the remainder of that apology the second 
part would have explained away the first. But it was found afterwards 
that the entire apology, when printed, was tenfold weightier than the 
few lines in my first extract. In like manner the brief phrases and 
paragraphs which I gave in my sworn statement from his letters were 
not afterward softened, but intensified, by the publication of the letters 
in full. The brief extracts were the wind — the complete letters were 
the whirlwind. I no more garbled Mr. Beecher's letters by making 
from them the extracts which I did, than I would garble the decalogue 
by quoting to him from it the single commandment, " Thou shalt not 
commit adultery." 

Nevertheless, it is true, as Mr. Beecher says, that his letters have 
been " garbled." He goes so far as to say that they have been " wick- 
edly garbled ; " and this, too, cannot be denied. But it is not I who 
have garbled Mr. Beecher's letters, it is Mr. Beecher himself. For I 
maintain that the pretended explanations which he has given of them — 
against their plain meaning — against what he knows to be the facts to 
which they refer — and against the common sense of an intelligent 
public ; all this is garbling of a heinous kind. Mr. Beecher is the man 
who has garbled his letters. It is he who has tried to take out of them 
their manifest meaning. It is he who has perverted their plain phrase3 
into doubtful interpretation. 

Mr. Beecher saw at a glance that his letters, on being read in a straight- 
forward manner by the public, convicted him of adultery. He knew 
that unless these letters could be explained into something which they 
did not mean he would stand self-condemned — put to death by the point 
of his own pen. It is the part of a brave man when he speaks to abide 
by his words. Mr. Beecher's behavior towards his own letters proves 
him to be that most pitiable of all cowards — a man who dares not face 
his own handwriting. 

His defence is that these letters were written to express his remorse 
for having given to Mrs. Tilton bad advice. I have already proven by 
the written testimony of Mrs. Tilton's mother that Mr. Beecher never 
gave any such advice to Elizabeth, but gave just the opposite. But 
even had he given such advice— namely, that Mrs. Tilton should sepa- 
rate from her husband — I hold that such advice, given on the theory 
that her husband had deprived her of food, fuel, and personal liberty, 
would not have been bad. but good ; and the giver of such advice would 
never need to have repented of giving it. 

But I will go farther and say that, granting such advice to have been 
given, and to have been bad, yet, since Mrs. Tilton did not accept this 
advice, but rejected it — since she did not separate from her husband and 
home, but remained with her family as before — in other words, since 



588 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

Mr. Beecher's bad advice was not followed by ill consequences, but no 
harm whatever caine of it — it is a mockery of human reason to say that 
he spent four years of remorse in contemplating the giving of bad advice 
which was never taken, and which produced no effect of harm or ill ! 

Such an explanation of Mr. Beecher's letters is "garbling" indeed ! 

Had Mr. Beecher's alleged advice ever been given, as I believe it was 
not; had this advice been followed by Mrs. Tilton's separation from her 
husband at that time, though no such separation then ensued ; had a 
permanent sundering actually taken place between husband and wife, 
induced without other cause than simply a clergyman's bad advice — 
involving the scattering of a family of children, made fatherless and 
motherless by that worst of all orphanage which comes by the divorce of 
parents ; had Mr. Beecher seen all this during the past four years, as he 
will see it during the next four, he might well have hid occasion to 
mourn the giving of such advice ; but I repeat that the advice which 
he pretends to have given was not followed ; and there is the best evi- 
dence that he never gave any such advice at all, nor ever wrote one of 
his letters for any such reason. 

It is he, then, who has garbled away the "meaning from his letters. 

Mr. Beecher's adroit effort to persuade the public to accept a false 
interpretation of these letters is vain. They have a plain meaning, 
which no counter-explanation can ever blot out. They are all based on 
one central fact — a criminal intimacy between himself and Mrs. Tilton, 
which had been confessed by both parties to her husband and to Mr. 
Moulton. This simple fact is the key which unlocks all the mysteries 
of these letters — if mysteries they contain. All the letters, notes and 
memoranda refer to the crime of adultery, to the fear of disclosure, and 
to the consequent " devices " for the safety of the participants. 

When Mrs. Tilton made to me her confession of July 3, 1870, it was 
a confession of adultery. When, in her note of December 30, following, 
she said, " I gave a letter implicating my friend Henry Ward Beecher," 
it was an implication of adultery. When, in her second note of the 
same evening, she said that Mr. Beecher had visited her bedside and 
reproached her for having " struck him dead," it was because she had 
disclosed his adultery. When Mr. Beecher cast himself upon Mr. Moul- 
ton's strong and faithful protection, it was because the wretched man 
had been detected in his adultery. When, during the four years that 
followed the 1st of January, 1871, hardly a month or week passed which 
did not witness Mr. Beecher in some consultation with Mr. Moulton, 
either by letter or in perscn, was to concoct measures for concealing 
this adultery. When Mr. Beecher, conscious of his guilt and fearing 
detection, fell often into hopeless gloom at the prospect of disclosure, it 
was because the crime to be disclosed was adultery. When, from the 
beginning to the end of Mr. Moulton's relationship with Mr. Beecher, 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 589 

those two men pursued a common plan — in which I, too, participated — ■ 
this plan was to guard two families of children from the consequences 
of this adultery. When Mr. Beecher wrote to me his letter of contri- 
tion, it was because he sought to placate me into forgiveness of his 
adultery. When he asked me to remember " all the other hearts that 
would ache," it was because of the misery whicli two households and 
their wide connections would suffer by the discovery of his adultery. 
When he wrote to Mrs. Tilton that Mr. Moulton had " tied up the storm 
which was ready to burst upon their heads." it was because Mr. Moulton 
had skilfully held back Mr. Bowen's meditated proceedings against Mr. 
Beecher for adultery. When Mr. Beecher wrote that it would " kill 
him if Mr. Moulton were not a friend to Mrs. Tilton's honor," he meant 
that this lady's " honor," like every other " lady's honor," was her repu- 
tation for chastity, and he relied on Mr. Moulton to keep the world from 
knowing that this lady's pastor had soiled her "honor" by adultery. 
When Mr. Beecher requested Mrs. Morse to call him her " son," which 
she did, and when she begged him to come and see her, pledging herself 
not to allude to her " daughter's secret," it was because this mother 
knew that this " son " and daughter had committed adultery. When 
this mother gave this " son " the troublesome information that " twelve 
persons " had been put in possession of this secret, it was the guilty and 
perilous secret of adultery. When Mr. Beecher shuddered at the like- 
lihood that Mr. Bowen had communicated to Mr. Claflin " the bottom 
facts," it was because the chief fact lying at the bottom of all was adul- 
tery. When Mr. Beecher said to Mr. Moulton. " Can't we hit upon 
some plan to break the force of my letter to Tilton," it was because the 
letter whose force he wished to break was his letter of contrition for his 
adultery. When in his despair he wrote, " Would to God, Theodore, 
Elizabeth and I could be friends again. Theodore would have the 
hardest task in such a case," it was because this " hardest task " would 
consist of forgiving a wife and her paramour for their adultery. When 
Mrs. Tilton wrote imploringly, both to Mr. Moulton and to Mr. Beecher, 
that " the papers should be destroyed," it was because those papers 
were records of adultery. When, in brokenness of spirit, Mrs. Tilton 
wrote to ask her seducer's forgiveness, it was because of her womanly 
distress at having betrayed him for his adultery. When, in one of her 
clandestine notes to him, she referred to her " nest-hiding," it was a 
means of more pleasantly reminding him of his own poetic expression 
for their adultery. When her destroyer wrote to Mr. Moulton, February 
5, 1872, saying, " I would not believe that any one could have passed 
through my experience and be alive or sane," he confessed the agony 
of living on the verge of public punishment for adultery. When he 
said to Mr. Moulton, "You are literally all my stay and comfort," it was 
because this brave and tender friend was the barrier between the public 



590 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

and the knowledge of a clergyman's adultery. When Mr. Beecher, who 
was never tired of sending to his friend such love-letters as a man seldom 
writes to a man, said to him, " I would have fallen on the way but for 
the courage with which you inspired me," it was his ever-grateful 
acknowledgment to one who was saving him from the fate which pun- 
ishes clergymen for adultery. When he bewailed the " keen suspicions 
with which he was pressed,'' these were the dangerous suspicions of a 
congregation to whom public rumor had carried a horrible hint of their 
pastor's adultery. When lie feared an " appeal to the church and then 
a council," and prognosticated thereby a " conflagration," it was because 
he foresaw how the public mind would be influenced by the knowledge 
of his adultery. When he portrayed himself as standing in daily dread 
of those personal friends who were making a "ruinous defence" of him, 
it was because he feared that their clamorous statements of his inno- 
cence would blunderingly lead to the detection of his adultery. When 
he cried out that he was " suffering the torments of the damned," he 
was pouring out his heart's anguish to the only man to whom he had 
liberty to unburden his remorse for his adultery. When he said that 
he could not carry this burden to his wife and children, it was because 
he was ashamed to acknowledge to them his adultery. When lie wrote 
to Moulton, saying, " Sacrifice me without hesitation if you can clearly 
see your way to his (Mr. Tilton's) safety and happiness thereby." he 
alluded to the sacrifice of his good name in expiation of his adultery. 
When he said of himself, " I should be destroyed, but he (Mr. Tilton) 
would not be saved," it was because all that was needed for his destruc- 
tion was simply that the world should be told of his adultery. When 
he said, "Elizabeth and her children would have their future clouded," 
lie saw hanging over this ruined mother and her brood the black and 
awful .cloud which hangs over every matron guilty of adultery. When 
he wrote, "Life would be pleasant if I could see that rebuilt which 
is shattered," he referred to the moral impossibility of reconstructing 
a home once broken by adultery. When he compared himself to 
" Esau, who sold his birthright and found no place for repentance, 
though he sought it carefully with tears," it was because the unpar- 
donable crime which this minister had committed was adultery. When 
he spoke in eulogy of Mr. Moulton's wife as reviving "his waning faith 
in womanhood," it was because his thoughts were then of another and 
weaker woman, whose moral nature he had overcome, and who after- 
wards had betrayed him for his adultery. When the strong woman, 
who had thus restored "his waning faith in womanhood," counselled 
him to make " a frank and manly confession of his sin, asking man's 
forgiveness for it, as he expected God's," and when he afterwards 
wrote that "her clear truthfulness laid him flat"— all this shows how 
he quailed before a virtuous woman's rebuke for his adultery. When 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 591 

he said to me that I " would have been a better man than he in such 
circumstances," he meant that I would have disdained to stoop to the 
crime of seducing the wife of an intimate friend, or of using the power 
of a clergyman to corrupt a trusting parishioner into adultery. When 
he said of me that I had " condoned my wife's fault," pointing me to 
this condonation as constituting on my part a pledge of forgiveness 
towards him, he wrote in that word " condone " the plainest possible 
confession of his adultery. In like manner all Mr. Beecher's letters, 
when read in view of the one sad and guilty fact which is the key-note 
to their tragic meaning, constitute a four years' history of a mind 
afflicted with " anxiety, remorse, fear and despair" — all in consequence 
of a discovered adultery. 

If I have been thus explicit in reiterating Mr. Beecher's crime, it is 
not for the sake of proving it from his letters, for I have sufficiently 
proved it without help from these, but only to show that I did not 
garble these letters when I pointed to them as proofs of adultery ; and 

I repeat that, if Beecher's letters have been (as he says) " wickedly 
garbled," it is he who has garbled them. It is I who have restored 
them to their true meaning. 

XYI. I revert now to a letter of my own— the Bacon letter. Why 
did I write it? Let the facts speak. 

I wish to be candidly judged by the following statement : 
Ever since 1870, when I quitted Plymouth Church because of its 
pastor's crime against my family, I had been year after year persecuted 
by certain members and officers of that church — a persecution which 
its pastor might and ought to have prevented, and for which I always 
held him responsible; a persecution including the introduction of 
charges against me for slandering him, whereas the so-called slanders, 
instead of being false, were true; a persecution including the dropping 
of my name from the roll in a manner craftily designed to cast oppro- 
brium upon me, under an appearance of official fairness by the church ; 
a persecution involving a public insult to my family by Mr. T. G. Shear- 
man, Clerk of the church, for which he was compelled to apologize ; a 
persecution including the presentation to the Brooklyn Council of a 
document in which Mr. Beecher and his church defended themselves 
before that tribunal on the ground that I had been dropped for "bring- 
ing dishonor on the Christian name," whereas I had been dropped be- 
cause Mr. Beecher himself was the man who had " brought dishonor on 
the Christian name;" a persecution culminating at last in a public 
implication cast upon me by the Moderator of that Council, the Rev. 
Leonard Bacon, D. D., who, after carefully studying the records of 
Plymouth Church in my case, decided from these that I was proven a 

II knave and dog," and that Mr. Beecher's behavior towards me showed 
him to be " the most magnanimous of men." 



592 THE THUE HISTOEY OF 

This accumulation of wrongs I resolved no longer to bear. I an- 
nounced this to Mr. Beecher, and told him that either he or I must 
correct Dr. Bacon's misrepresentations of my conduct, since these 
would ruin me before the world. I provided an easy way by which Mr. 
Beecher, without a confession of his guilt, and even without a humilia- 
tion to his feelings, could assure Dr. Bacon — and Dr. Bacon the public — 
that I had acted towards Mr. Beecher the part of a fair and honorable 
man. 

I waited three months for Mr. Beecher to put this plan (or some 
other) into effect. But he did not choose to embrace the opportunity. 
He neglected — perhaps disdained it. 

I then resolved — against Mr. Moulton's expostulations, but at the 
dictate of my self-respect — to rescue myself from the false position in 
which Plymouth Church and its pastor had placed me, and to make a 
struggle to regain my good name which I had done nothing to forfeit. 

The best method of vindication which suggested itself to me was to 
write a public letter to Dr. Bacon giving the true reason of my retire- 
ment from Plymouth Church, which was that a wrong had been com- 
mitted against me by the pastor, in evidence of which I quoted a few 
lines from his apology. 

I well knew that I could thus make the world see at a glance (which 
it did) that I was less the creature of Mr. Beecher's magnanimity than 
he was of mine. I sought and accomplished this purpose, and this 
only, by the Bacon letter, and did it solely in self-defence. 

Now, in so doing, I not only had no wish to compromise my wife, 
but, on the contrary, I sought, while rectifying my position, to do the 
same by hers. To this end I introduced into the Bacon letter Mr. 
Shearman's apology to Mrs. Tilton, together with a eulogistic reference 
to her in my own words, as "a lady of devout religious faith and life." 
The Bacon letter was thus a tribute to, not an attack upon Mrs. Tilton. 

Mr. Beecher saw by this tribute (and by others which I habitually 
paid to my wife) that, however willing I might be to cope with him, I 
was never willing to endanger her. No other man in the world knew 
so well as Mr. Beecher did how strong an affection I have always held — 
and shall always hold — for my wife. He had seen, by long observation 
of my sympathy for her, that his safest protection against any possible 
resentment of mine was always in my unwillingness to compromise this 
tender and wounded woman. 

Accordingly, on the appearance of the Bacon letter, Mr. Beecher, 
after contriving various methods of meeting it (which Mr. Moulton has 
described), finally adopted the bold and wicked expedient of appointing 
a committee to inquire into the acts of a lady whom he first led into 
adultery, and whom he then delivered up to a tribunal for examination 
for her crime ! Never can I forget my sickening astonishment, on her 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 593 

account, on the day when, by public proclamation from Mr. Beecher's 
pen, and amid the published clamor of his partisans, he called all the 
world to witness that he had commissioned six committeemen to in- 
quire into his offence — his offence being- also hers, so that an inquiry 
into it also involved equally the ruin of both — but especially (as in all 
such cases) the woman, albeit the lesser offender. On that ominous 
morning I shuddered for the fate of the woman whom Mr. Beecher was 
thus ruthlessly exposing to the hazard of public shame. 

Mr. Beecher's design in this public inquiry into his "offence" and 
" apology " was to make a bold pretence that he had never committed 
any " offence " nor ever offered any " apology." 

To make this pretence of innocence the more plausible to the public. 
his agents had previously arranged that on this same day Mrs. Tilton 
should take flight from her home to join Beecher in his attack on me; 
and she has never recrossed my threshold since that hour. 

Distinctly should it be borne in mind that Mr. Beecher's publication 
of his challenge, and Mrs. Tilton's desertion to him to sustain it, oc- 
curred on the same morning, namely, July 11, 1874. On that morning 
at six o'clock she quitted the house, not to return to it ; and an hour 
afterwards the daily papers were furnished to me, containing, under 
flaming head-lines, Mr. Beecher's commission to his Committee of In- 
vestigation. 

These two acts — one by Mrs. Tilton, the other by Mr. Beecher — were 
parts of one and the same event; a joint attack on me — the two assail- 
ants striking their opening blows at the same moment. 

Mr. Beecher's assault was the more public of the two, for it reached 
me through all the newspapers on that first morning; but in order that 
Mrs. Tilton's act towards me might lose no force through lack of prompt 
publicity, Mr. Ovington hastened to publish a card in the Brooklyn 
Argus announcing that Mrs. Tilton, on the previous Saturday, had 
" parted from her husband forever." 

That eventful Saturday morning, the 11th of July, found me in the 
strangest situation of my whole life — a situation which I had not fore- 
seen, and which I could with difficulty realize — a situation consisting 
of the following elements: First, I had been publicly challenged by 
Mr. Beecher to divulge to a church committee the story of his crimi- 
nality with Mrs. Tilton ; and second, Mrs. Tilton herself, by her open 
desertion to her paramour, had publicly seconded him in this audacious 
demand. 

What should I do ? After two days of reflection — the most agonizing 
which I ever endured — I felt it my duty to accept this challenge; and 
in one week afterwards I laid the facts before the committee in a docu- 
ment now known as my Sworn Statement. 

It will thus be seen that mv sworn statement was not given to the 



594 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

committee until the ninth day after Mrs. Tilton's desertion from her 
husband, and after her publicly joining his enemies, who were seeking 
by their powerful ecclesiastical enginery to crush out his little remnant 
of a broken name. 

Had Mrs. Tilton remained with me my sworn statement would never 
have been made ; nor did the thought of making such a statement enter 
my mind until after her desertion; but at last, when Mr. Beecher and 
Mrs. Tilton publicly turned upon me and demanded that I should expose 
them, I had no course open to me but to state the plain truth, and to 
let all the parties abide by the consequences. 

Mr. Moulton has shown how great was my desire, during the earlier 
sessions of the committee, to shield my wife : in other words, how little 
I demanded from the committee in my own behalf and how much in 
hers. My proposed form for their report (as quoted by Mr. Moulton) 
concluded as follows : 

"The committee cannot forbear to state that the Rev. Henry Ward 
Beecher. Mr. T'leodore Tilton, and Mrs. Tilton (and in an especial man- 
ner the latter) merit and should receive the sympathy and respect of 
Plymouth Church and congregation." 

It was on the very next morning after I wrote the above proposed 
kindly and charitable report for the committee to adopt, and showed it 
to my wife, who not only approved it, but expressed with tears her 
marvel that I should have demanded more for her good name than I 
had done for mine; it was, I say, on the very next morning after my 
writing the above report that Mrs. Tilton, in obedience to Mr. Beecher's 
advisers, deserted the home to which she lias never since returned. 

I repeat, therefore, that the exposure which I made to the committee 
and to the public was no suggestion of mine, but was brought about by 
Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton, who united in demanding it at my hands, 
and who, by this demand, left me no alternative but to comply or to 
refuse; my compliance being ruin to them ; my refusal, ruin to myself. 
Forced to make choice between these two alternatives — both almost 
equally horrible to my feelings — I at last determined not to be thus 
brow-beaten by two persons who, having received my past pardon and 
my continuous forbearance, seemed at last attacking my very life. 

I ask the public, therefore, to weigh the one fact which I have thus 
set forth, namely, that the responsibility for the revelations which I 
have made rests, not on me, but on Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton. I 
wash my hands of it. 

XVI. This rehearsal of events will now enable me to answer two 
points which have been made against me. One is this — I am asked 
frequently : " Mr. Tilton, how could you, after condoning your wife's 
fault four years ago, proclaim it at so late a day ? " My answer has 
been just foreshadowed, and it is this : I made this exposure, not of my 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 595 

free will, but from compulsion ; I made it because Mr. Beecher and Mrs. 
Tilton compelled me to make it. I did not volunteer it. I would gladly 
have continued to shield both parties for the i^ake of one. But when 
Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton made a public league against me, and in 
the face of the whole community defied me to tell the facts, I was either 
forced to accept their joint challenge, or, by declining it, to deserve the 
contempt of mankind. That is my answer, and candid men and women 
will acknowledge it to be just. 

Next, I have an equally plain answer to those critics who condemn 
me for having committed, as they say, a blunder in condoning my wife's 
fault at first. 

And my answer is : I am perfectly willing to accept this condemna- 
tion from all who choose to offer it — whether from foes or friends. Be- 
fore God I hold that I did right, and not wrong, in forgiving an erring 
woman who went astray through a powerful temptation. No regret be- 
clouds my mind for this forgiveness of my wife — which, I am sure, I 
shall look back to from my dying-bed with pleasure, not with pain. I 
forgave this gentlewoman because I loved her ; I forgave her for her 
children's sake ; I forgave her because I despise the public sentiment 
which condones such faults in men, and then compels men to punish 
them in women ; I forgave her because, even after her grievous error, 
she still remained a woman loving right rather than wrong, and seeking 
good rather than evil ; I forgave her because I tenderly remembered 
that Christ himself forgave a similar fault in a more wicked woman — 
and who was 1 to scorn the law of his great example ? No criticism of 
my forgiveness of Mrs. Tilton can prick me with any pang. If all the 
acts of my life had been as righteous as this good deed of charity — albeit 
towards a woman who has since but poorly requited me for it — I would 
now be a better man than I am. 

XVII. I have only to add that I know no words of measured modera- 
tion in which to characterize fitly Mr. Beecher's recent treatment of this 
broken-hearted lady, whom he has flung against the wall of Plymouth 
Church and dashed to pieces. First, he instituted a public committee 
to inquire into her adultery with him, whereas he ought to have pro- 
tected her against this exposure ; then he beckoned her away from her 
husband's house, making her very flight bear witness to her guilt ; then 
he suborned her to give false testimony against her husband, with a 
view to destroy him before the world ; then, with unparalleled baseness, 
lie turned upon the companion of his crime and accused her of having 
been the tempter rather than the tempted— declaring that she had 
" thrust her affections upon him unsought ; " then he variously indicted 
her for what he called "her needless treachery to her friend and pastor," 
expressing his doubts whether to call her (as he says) <; a saint or the 
chief of sinners," arguing (as he says again) that she must be either 



596 THE TKUE HISTORY OF % 

" corrnpted to deceit or so broken in mind as to be irresponsible," de- 
bating with himself (as he says still further) whether he should not 
"pour out his indignation upon her and hold her up to contempt ; " and 
then, after making all these contemptuous references to her in his pub- 
lished statement, he prompted his committee to render a verdict against 
her in which they declare her conduct towards Mr. Beecher, even on 
their own theory of her innocence, to be "utterly indefensible ; " and, 
last of all, he permitted his own journal, the Christian Union, to stig- 
matize her as a " poor, weak woman," whose testimony was of no value 
either for or against the man who had tempted her to utter her false- 
hoods in his own behalf! 

All this base and brutal conduct by Mr. Beecher towards Mrs. Tilton 
prompts me to speak of him in fierce and burning words. But I forbear. 
" Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." I have become so 
used to sorrows in my own life that I cannot wish for their infliction 
npon another man, not even on my worst enemy. I will not ask the 
public to visit upon Mr. Beecher any greater condemnation for the 
desolation which he has brought upon those who loved, trusted, and 
served him, than I have in past times seen him suffer from his own self- 
inflicted tortures in contemplation of the very crime for which he lias 
now been exposed to the scorn and pity of the world. I know well 
enough how his own thoughts have bowed him in agony to the dust; 
and this is enough. Wherefore, in contemplating my empty house, my 
scattered children, and my broken home, I thank Heaven that my heart 
19 spared the pang of this man's remorse for having wrought a ruin 
which not even Almighty God can repair. Theodore Tilton. 

Brooklyn, September 16, 1874. 

And so the great scandal case reduces itself to a per- 
sonal issue of veracity between Theodore Tilton and 
Francis D. Moulton, on the one side, and Henry Ward 
Beecher, on the other. Public opinion naturally sustains 
the man of pure and upright character, who, for nearly 
forty years, has lived so conspicuously in the light of 
the open day and whose whole life has been a monument 
of purity. Summing up the evidence, the Neic York 
Tribune thus states the conclusions of most reputable 
persons : 

The man at whose door the shameful sin is laid is a clergy- 
man whose name has been honored wherever the English Ian- 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 597 

guage is spoken. Over sixty years of honest life bear witness 
for hirn. The lady denounced as his paramour has been uni- 
versally praised as a fond wife and mother, and a woman of 
such strong religious feeling and devout impulses that her hus- 
band can only account for her alleged fall on the supposition 
that she did not suppose adultery with a minister to be any sin. 
Mr. Tilton, on the other hand, has pursued during the last few 
years the most discreditable courses. He has consorted with 
loose women. He has written a scandalous biography of a no- 
torious she-devil, and afterward confessed that he knew it to be 
a pack of lies. He has lied about these very charges. He has 
taken money from the man whom he accuses of dishonoring his 
wife. His career has been an affront to social decency, and a 
grief to his friends. His character for veracity in particular is 
said by those who have known him long to be extremely bad. 
AH the presumptions are against him, and he has only himself 
to blame if the world refuses to take his word. 



XXXIV. 

PUBLIC CONFIDENCE IX MR. BEECHER. 

Tiltox and Moulton assert that their attacks have 
utterly destroyed the reputation of Mr. Beecher, and 
have shaken the public confidence in him to its very 
foundations, and they claim that they have established 
all their charges. The Christian Union thus states the 
manner in which Mr. Beecher has been treated by the 
public during the progress of this unhappy affair. Its 
statements are all the reply that is necessary to Tilton, 
Moulton & Co. 

Since the trial to which Mr. Beecher has been exposed he has 
frequently been heard to say, " My experience reverses all that 
has ever been said of the inconsistency of human friendship in 
adversity. Never man had such friends as I have ! " Ever 



598 THE TKUE HISTORY OF 

since this public accusation the daily mail of Mr. Beecher has 
been a most singular and wonderful testimony to the steadfast- 
ness and purity and strength of that faith which a long, con- 
sistent life of goodness inspires. In view of these numerous 
and daily recurring letters, he has been known to say, " It is 
almost worth while to have had so great a sorrow, in order to 
have seen this nobler side of human nature." Mr. Beecher's 
mail often numbers 60 or 70 letters a day. It comes from every 
part of America, and, indeed, of the world. Very recently a 
letter was received from Australia from a Methodist missionary 
desiring to exchange papers with the Christian Union, and 
speaking with deep feeling of the great usefulness of Mr. Beech- 
er's weekly sermons in their Australian missionary work. Let- 
ters have been received from Canada and from England, in 
which, with a noble confidence, the writers — some, men high in 
churchly and literary rank, others from among the great mass 
who read and love him — professed their faith in him, simply 
from the spirit of piety and purity in his published writings. 
The testimony of hundreds of letters which came before Mr. 
Beecher had published his vindication was of the writers' un- 
shaken faith in him, from their knowledge of his past history, 
and the good which they had received in his writings. 

Many of these letters are from old political enemies ; many 
of them from places where once his name was execrated. From 
Baltimore, from Natchez, from New Orleans, have come noble 
letters of trust and encouragement, denouncing the slander with a 
generous indignation, and expressing unshaken faith that his in- 
nocence would be made to appear. Not the least affecting of these 
letters are from poor, or obscure, or desolate and sorrowful peo- 
ple whom Mr. Beecher has been able to comfort. That same 
tender and merciful spirit which exposed him to the snares of 
designing men has made him ever full of compassion for the 
weak, the tempted, the poor and sorrowful. Many of these 
letters say, " You have enabled me to live under great sor- 
row." " You have taught me the meaning of affliction." " But 
for you I know not how I could have lived under my afflic- 
tion;" and then follow touching, earnest attempts to return 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 599 

comfort to him. In one case the writer makes a selection of 
comforting and encouraging passages from Mr. Beecher's own 
writings to people under affliction and earnestly begs him to re- 
member them now. 

It is worthy of remark, also, that members of all denomina- 
tions have joined in this tribute. Baptist and Methodist breth- 
ren, from distant fields of labor, send voices of encouragement. 
A Jewish rabbi sends words of confidence and trust worthy a 
son of the Old Testament. And, finally, a man writes: "I 
believe neither in God nor in the Christian religion, nor in 
priests, but having read your statement I believe in you, as an 
honest man, and will say, furthermore, that it has come nearer 
to making me want to be a Christian than anything I have ever 
read." 

Now it has been proved abundantly that Mr. Beecher has 
made great mistakes in this matter. It has been proved that 
he has given his confidence and his affection with unwise cre- 
dulity to seeming friends who have betrayed him. But for two 
treacherous friends there have been thousands of constant ones. 
A cold-hearted, wary, prudent man never would have made 
such mistakes as Mr. Beecher has — nor such friends, friends 
whose constancy and devotion may well renew our faith in 
human nature. The Rev. Leonard W. Bacon writes from 
Geneva, Switzerland, to the publishers of the Christian Union 
words that embody, we believe, the belief of very many: "I 
never have had a doubt of him. His power of patient waiting 
convinced me that he knew himself to be right. ' He that 
believeth shall not make haste.' Despite the blunders of these 
last four years, I believe they will be shown to be the most 
heroic and Christ-like of his life." 

One of* Mr. Beecher's most devoted friends thus states 
the reasonable grounds for the confidence with which 
the people have clung to the great preacher throughoiu 
his trials : 

It is evident that the best sentiment of the community is 
gravitating steadily to a firm faith in Mr. Beecher. Consider- 



X 



600 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

ing the violence and extraordinary ingenuity of the attacks 
upon him, the strength which was lent to them by his own mis- 
takes, and the difficulty of clearly proving a negative which 
weighs so heavily upon the defence in such a case, it is remarka- 
ble that the public confidence in him is rallying so rapidly. 
Yet, there is still an amount of uncertainty and a desire for a 
fuller vindication which is wholly out of proportion to any 
weight in the proofs. We wish to dwell for a moment on the 
causes which have given to the accusations a degree of credit 
wholly in excess of their intrinsic credibility. 

Mr. Tilton's charge was openly proclaimed to the public only 
in last July. But, for years previously, slanders had been dis- 
seminated in a way in which it was impossible to meet them. 
Stories had been whispered in the ears of influential men. Vile 
accusations were repeated "in confidence" to those who were 
sure to give them wide and speedy currency. Mr. Beecher's 
absolute reticence left his friends for a long time without even 
his word of denial to oppose to these calumnies. In particular, 
the seeds of slander were carefully sown among newspaper men, 
and a part of the press has treated the matter throughout under 
a bias thus covertly given in advance. 

Then, the open assaults were made in a way to produce the 
maximum effect, and, as usual, truth was slower in refuting 
than falsehood in asserting. The publication in Tilton's letter 
to Dr. Bacon of the so-called " confession'' gave a shock to the 
public mind. It was seven weeks before the slow process of a 
formal investigation brought to light the fact that that paper 
was signed by Mr. Beecher without reading, and utterly per- 
verted his expressions. The delay in the explanation increased 
ten-fold the practical effect of the publication of the paper. 
Mr. Tilton's full story, as told to the committee and instantly 
given to the world, was so framed and colored as to make on 
minds unaccustomed to scrutinize evidence — that is, on the 
great mass of the community — an impression utterly beyond 
the weight that would be allowed it by a trained judge. It was 
three weeks before Mr. Beecher's statement could be set against 
it, and everyday of that delay told in the accuser's favor. Mr. 



THE BROOKLYN SCAXDAL. 601 

Moulton absolutely evaded the committee and the cross-exami- 
nation, and through the safe channel of the public press has let 
loose one deluge after another of disgusting stories. The whole 
affair has illustrated the saying, "Throw mud enough, and some 
of it will stick." Mr. Beecher's reputation has suffered less 
from all the evidence — using the word in its widest sense — 
than from the mere connection of his name with a mass of foul- 
ness. A man who has been pelted with bad eggs, be he in his 
own behavior the most immaculate of mortals, is for a time in 
bad odor with his neighbors. But, as the falsehood of these 
charges becomes apparent, their very foulness must intensify the 
revulsion of feeling in favor of the man who has suffered from 
them. 

We have spoken of some of the causes which have, for a 
time, lent undue effect to the accusatory evidence. That evi- 
dence, sifted and weighed, resolves itself into the word of two 
men, both of whom the public has the best reasons for distrust- 
ing, and certain of Mr. Beecher's letters, of which he has given 
a full and sufficient explanation. We turn now to that evi- 
dence which establishes a presumption of innocence, that, 
weighed against such proof, amounts to an absolute moral 
demonstration. We mean the evidence of character. 

Mr. Beecher's virtues and public services have sometimes 
been spoken of, not as proof of his innocence, but as ground 
for his forgiveness by the community. We reject w r ith abhor- 
rence such a plea as that. That a minister of the gospel should 
retain his public charge after being guilty of adultery is repug- 
nant to every sentiment of religion and every conviction of 
right reason. The worst enemies of the public good in this 
discussion have been those journals — happily very few — which 
said, in effect: "Oh! we guess he's guilty, but he is a great 
preacher and a good fellow: let him go on with his preaching 
and have no more fuss about it ! " The men who have written 
in this tone have written their own condemnation, as insensible 
to the plainest instincts, we will not say of religion, but of 
morality and decency. 

Rejecting, then, indignantly, the idea of condoning such an 



602 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

offence as Mr. Beecher is charged with on account of any pub- 
lic services or personal merits whatsoever, we say that the tenor 
of Mr. Beecher's life, as the whole world may read it, of itself 
affords an overwhelming presumption that the charge is utterly 
false. And before pressing the general argument, we wish to 
correct misapprehension on a single point. The original version 
of this calumny pretended that Mr. Beecher, a "progressive" 
and "radical" thinker, sympathized with the " advanced" doc- 
trine of free love. Without fully believing this assertion, many 
persons among the class who are conservative in theology and 
politics have a vague feeling that Mr. Beecher, in their view a 
very unorthodox and "loose" thinker, may be liable to strange 
vagaries upon social topics. Now, while Mr. Beecher has not 
adhered closely to the traditions of orthodox theology, while he 
has been in ardent sympathy with genuine reforms in politics 
and in society, while he has been the advocate of the highest 
personal freedom and a political equality irrespective of nation- 
ality or sex, on one subject he has been absolutely conservative: 
the relations of marriage and the family. From his multitudi- 
nous writings not one word can be produced that betrays the 
slightest sympathy with anything tending to weaken the mar- 
riage tie. His whole teaching and influence has tended to 
maintain, in utmost sacred ness and purity, the Christian ideal 
of the family. The readers of this journal will bear witness 
that, while we have been sometimes counted unorthodox in our 
theology, and have said some things, and allowed our contrib- 
utors to say more that ran counter to established ideas in 
various respects, there has never been a line in the paper, 
editorial or contributed, that lent shadow of countenance to the 
unholy theories that tend to make the marriage tie less sacred. 
In his paper, in his pulpit, and in his life, Mr. Beecher has 
been thoroughly consistent in this matter. As he said in his 
cross-examination: "I stand on the New England doctrine in 
which I was brought up, that it is best for a man to have one 
wife, and that he stay by her, and that he do not meddle with 
his neighbors' wives. I abhor every manifestation of the free 
love doctrine that I have seen in theory, and I abhor every 
advocate of the free love doctrine that I have known." 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 603 

We spoke last week of the publicity in which Mr. Beecher 
has lived. But the real meaning of his life has not always 
been penetrated even by those who admired him. His genius, 
his wit, his oratorical power, have sometimes diverted attention 
from the quality which underlies and ennobles his talents. 
That quality is devotion to the service of his fellow-men. If 
there has been one central force in the life of Henry Ward 
Beecher it has been this — the desire and purpose to help those 
who needed help. His preaching, his theology, his whole public 
and private life, have taken their color from this quality. He 
has taught it and he has lived it. Whoever reads the self- 
disclosures which abound in his writings will see this disposi- 
tion revealed as the mainspring of his laborious life, and the 
highest source of his power. It shines out in all his preaching. 
"A love that does not count itself dear; that is measured not 
by what it can get, but give ; that is tested not by the exquisite- 
ness of its enjoyment, but by the degree to which it is willing 
to suffer; and yet farther, by the remoteness of the objects of 
love from ourselves, and the degree in which they are unable to 
recompense us again — this is Christ's ideal of love." So, in a 
private letter, he expresses what he has said in a thousand ser- 
mons. With infinite variety and richness of expression, the 
same ideal shines everywhere in his teaching. It is just this 
disposition which has inspired and moulded his life. The 
whole story of that life would have to be told, all its public ut- 
terances garnered, countless incidents drawn from the men and 
women he has met in private intercourse, to fully bring to light 
this quality in the man. We can give one or two illustrations 
only. 

Hardly any preacher in our time has presented the Divine 
character with such power and attractiveness as Mr. Beecher ; 
and the secret of this exalted and ennobling conception is 
largely to be found in that sympathetic, helpful element in the 
preacher's own disposition which enables him to conceive of 
beneficence and sympathy in their truly Divine forms. No 
mere intellectual power ever enabled a man to so think of 
Christ and God, and so draw men's hearts by the presentation of 



604 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

them, as Mr. Beecher does. It is only through the life that 
such truth is reached. 

We must look, however, not only at his abstract presentation 
of truth, but at the effects wrought on his hearers, and at his 
own walk and conversation. The only collective test that can 
be had of the fruits of his teaching is furnished by Plymouth 
Church. The impression which a casual observer sometimes 
gets, that the church is simply an audience gathered by the at- 
traction of a popular speaker, is wholly away from the truth. 
The church may be judged by that quality on which its pastor 
loves to dwell — its activity in good works. Its contributions 
to charities far exceed those of any similar body in the country. 
Its mission schools are among the largest and most beneficent 
to be found anywhere. And wherever its members have gone 
— and they have been scattered all over the land — we appeal 
to their new associates, whether, not only in warmth of Chris- 
tian feeling, but in disposition toward all charitable and helpful 
labor, they have not done honor to their mother-church and to 
the pastor who is the heart of that church, and to the Divine 
Source of that pastor's strength. 

More trustworthy than any other test of character is the 
simple record of the daily life. That cannot be laid at large 
before the public. But they can see one thing: while two men 
who have lived near Mr. Beecher have bitterly accused him, 
for the rest, just in proportion as people have been near him in 
daily life has their faith in him been strong. His church has 
not, it is true, been very "judicial"; perhaps it has not in all 
things been wise ; but it has been white-hot in its love and trust 
toward the man who for twenty-seven years has dwelt in its 
midst. His daily life, as we have said, it is impossible to por- 
tray at large. But we cannot forbear to give an outline of one 
or two days which happened to fall within our immediate 
knowledge. We give it merely as a sample of the character- 
istic life of the man who is called a libertine and a scoundrel. 

On successive days, Mr. Beecher delivered two of his power- 
ful lectures to the Yale Divinity School. At the close of the 
second lecture, he took the cars to visit a family who, in sudden 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 605 

and great sorrow, had asked for the comfort of his presence. 
As he took his seat in the car, a young man behind him, an 
entire stranger, leaned forward and addressed him abruptly: 
"Mr. Beecher! must I believe every word in the Bible, to be 
a Christian ? " " No ! " " Well— what then ? " " You must 
believe the truth that is in the Bible." After a moment's pon- 
dering: "Now, about the Incarnation. Why do I need to 
believe in that?" In rapid sentences Mr. Beecher laid open 
the subject to his comprehension. " I see. And now, about 
Conversion?" That, too, was swiftly discussed. The train 
reached a station, and the young man rose to go, saying : " Mr. 
Beecher, you have laid my ghosts." " I hope they will never 
rise again," was the reply; and they parted. In another hour 
Mr. Beecher was in the midst of a household upon whom had 
just fallen a sudden and terrible bereavement. With his very 
entrance a ray of peace and comfort came to their hearts. The 
next morning, he stood beside their dead, and spoke words, 
tender, gentle, that lifted them up out of the region of sorrow 
and gloom, until at last the very radiance of heaven shone upon 
them, and life and all its sorrows were glorified in the hope of 
the hereafter. He left, without pause, the household he had 
comforted; returned to the city; snatched an hour or two for 
his own affairs, already darkened by the lowering of the present 
cloud ; and that same evening gave to his people the wonted 
instruction and cheer of his "Lecture-Room Talk." Only a 
day's intermission, and Sunday followed with its two sermons. 
And so the man's life goes on. 

It is those who have had' such experience of him — and there 
are tens of thousands of them all over the land — who have held 
to Henry Ward Beecher in the darkest hours with a faith like 
adamant. They may say who will that there is more of faith 
than of reason in that confidence. It is such faith as a man 
gives to the wife who has been by his side for a lifetime, such 
faith as children give to parents who have through many years 
led them up into happiness and virtue. 

That ardent faith is not to be expected of the great world 
which is judging Mr. Beecher, and his friends ought not tf» de- 



606 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

niand it. But that world, in soberly weighing the evidence, 
must take full account of the significance of a life whose charac- 
ter is thus written in broad letters, and vouched for by un- 
numbered witnesses. In one scale is to be laid the testimony 
of such a life, and the word of such a man ; and in the other 
scale is the word of Theodore Tilton and F. D. Moulton, with 
whatever evidence their personal character may afford as to the 
value of their word. 

XXXV. 

MR. BEECHER BRINGS SUIT. 

On the 3d of October, Mr. Beecher made a formal complaint 
against Theodore Tilton and Francis D. Moulton before the 
Grand Jury of Kings county, New York, in consequence of 
which both Tilton and Moulton were indicted for malicious 
libel. At an early hour on that day Mr. Beecher, accompanied 
by Mr. Cleveland, of the Investigating Committee, Mr. Henry 
Beecher, and one or two other gentlemen, went to the Court- 
House in Brooklyn, where the Grand Jury was in session, and, 
after consultation with the District-Attorney, appeared before 
the Grand Jury for the purpose of procuring the indictment 
by that body of Theodore Tilton and Francis D. Moulton for 
malicious libel. When, at a later hour, the foreman of the 
Grand Jury presented to the presiding judge of General Ses- 
sions the roll of indictments found during the sittings of that 
body, it was generally understood that among them was one 
against each of the persons mentioned. The text of the in- 
dictment of Tilton contains two separate counts. The first 
count, after reciting the facts establishing jurisdiction, sets forth 
the publication in the Daily Graphic of a certain false, scan- 
dalous, malicious, and defamatory libel of Mr. Beecher, "in- 
tending to assert and cause it to be believed that the said 
Henry Ward Beecher, in the month of October, 1868, had 
been guilty of adultery with and then had criminal intercourse 
with one Elizabeth R. Tilton, who in October, 1868, as well 
as at the time of the wrong aforesaid, was a married woman, 



THE BKOOKLYN SCANDAL. 607 

and was the wife of him, said Theodore Tilton, and to cause it 
to be believed that said Henry Ward Beecher had admitted 
the fact of such adulterous intercourse to him." As a specifica- 
tion of this count of the indictment the interview between 
Mr. Beecher and Mr. Tilton, at which Mrs. Tilton is alleged 
to have been present and in the course of which Mr. Tilton 
claims they both confessed criminality and agreed upon the 
date of its commencement, is specially recited as embodied in 
Til ton's second statement. The second count recites the charge 
of perjury made by Tilton against Beecher in his statement, 
and quotes as specially "false, scandalous, malicious, defamatory, 
and libellous," the passage in which Tilton says: " I close this 
section by declaring, with a solemn sense of the meaning of my 
words, that Mr. Beecher's recent denial under oath is known 
to him (said Henry Ward Beecher) and to her (said Elizabeth 
R. Tilton), and to several other persons, to be an act of per- 
jury." This was also published in the Daily Graphic, and, 
in the words of the indictment, " to the great damage, scandal, 
and disgrace of the said Henry Ward Beecher, contrary to 
statute in such cases made and provided and against the peace 
of the people of the State of New York and their dignity." 

The indictment of Moulton is similar in form to that of Til- 
ton, and, after reciting in general terms the efforts of Moulton 
to defame the character and fair fame of Mr. Beecher, quotes 
as a first count in the indictment, and as specially libellous, 
the portion of Moulton's statement, already published, alleging 
that on the night that Moulton went for the retraction of Mrs. 
Tilton Mr. Beecher did not deny the charge of adultery with 
Mrs. Tilton, and subsequently, in specific terms, confessed the 
same and enunciated a specific justification of the doctrines of 
free-love. The second count of this indictment recites as libel- 
lous the entire passage of Moulton's statement in which he 
accuses Mr. Beecher of having confessed to him that he had 
taken improper liberties with a woman whose name is not 
mentioned in the statement, and who is described as having 
enticed Mr. Beecher with what he is alleged in the statement 
to have denominated " a paroxysmal kiss." 



608 THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

The popular judgment of Mr. Beecher's course is well stated 
by the Tribune of October 5 : 

The only measure by which the light can be made to shine 
upon the dark places of the Brooklyn scandal was taken on 
Friday by Mr. Beecher, in appearing before the Grand Jury 
and procuring the indictment of Theodoro Tilton and Francis 
D. Moulton for the crime of malicious libel. The indictment 
docs not rest on any technical point or any side issue. The 
question raised is one involving the vital merits of the case. 
Tilton is accused of malicious lying in charging Mr. Beecher 
with a criminal intimacy with Mrs. Tilton, and witli perjury in 
his affidavit denying such intimacy. Moulton is indicted for 
falsely saying that Mr. Beecher had confessed to him his crimi- 
nal intimacy with Mrs. Tilton and with another person. No 
verdict can be given on such an issue which shall not be decis- 
ive. If Mr. Beecher is innocent these men are guilty. If they 
are acquitted he is condemned. There can no longer be any 
middle ground. This trial will decide between the pastor of 
Plymouth Church and his assailants. When it closes he will 
have to leave his pulpit, or they will have to go to jail. It is 
scarcely possible that the contest before a court of justice can 
result in a drawn battle, with a cloud of doubts and mystifica- 
tions, and no positive assurance of truth on either side. If the 
case be now thoroughly tried, the matter may be finally put to 
rest. 

While no one can help regretting the new floods of foul 
evidence which this judicial investigation will pour out upon 
the country, we think there will be few who will not approve 
the conduct of Mr. Beecher in forcing the present issue. There 
was no other way of settling the dispute. The suit of Tilton 
against Beecher for adultery was a derisory one from the begin- 
ning. If it ever came to trial the fact of Tilton's confessed con- 
donation would put him out of court. The libel suit brought 
against Moulton by a lady whom he had so brutally assaulted 
did not touch the merits of the principal question. The public 
unquestionably looked to Mr. Beecher to appear in the attitude 
of a prosecutor against the men who have stirred up this unpre- 
cedented scandal. It was not a matter of merely personal con- 



THE BROOKLYN SCANDAL. 609 

cern. The community is directly interested in the issue now 
joined. If these men tell the truth, then Mr. Beecher should 
not be allowed to pollute the Christian religion by his ministra- 
tions. If they lie, it would be a general disgrace to permit 
them to escape punishment after having for so many months 
filled the public mind with such poisonous defilement. Mr. 
Beecher might forgive, if he chose, the crime against himself. 
But he has no right to forgive the crime against the public 
involved in that unwholesome familiarity with the vilest forms 
of domestic misery which Moulton and Tilton have propagated 
throughout the length and breadth of the land. Ten thousand 
immoral and obscene novels could not have done the harm 
which this case has done, in teaching the science of wrong to 
thousands of quick-witted and curious boys and girls. 

It is the fate of Mr. Beecher and nothing else which, is to 
be decided by the result of this trial. We do not wish to pre- 
judge it, nor to depart from that impartiality we have main- 
tained since the miserable business began. We shall not relin- 
quish the hope which we share with all cleanly people, that the 
most eminent preacher of our time may prove to be innocent 
of the disgusting crimes which are laid at his door. But the 
truth is more important than any man's fair fame, and we trust 
that the truth may be ascertained in the strict analysis of a 
criminal trial, no matter who suffers by it. We must repeat, 
however, that as it appears to us, Mr. Beecher is the only per- 
son whose reputation can suffer materially. The others have 
nothing left to lose, and little to gain. If they established the 
fact of Mr. Beecher's infamy, they could drag him down to 
their own level, but could not make of his ruin a pedestal for 
their own rehabilitation. Mr. Tilton has given a picture of 
himself which even to those who believe his story makes him 
something monstrous and repulsive. And Moulton in his last 
statement showed a depth of ferocious depravity which is 
entirely independent of the issue of this particular case. The 
question to be decided is not what manner of men they are. 
That is well enough known. The public now wait to hear a 
court of justice say merely what kind of man Mr. Beecher is. 
39 



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the United States, and having four houses, we can afford to sell 
books cheaper and pay Agents more liberal commissions than any 
other company. 

Our books do not pass through the hands of General Agents, (as 
nearly all other subscription works do,) therefore we are enabled to 
give our canvassers the extra per cent, which other publishers allow 
to General Agents. Experienced canvassers will see the advantages 
of dealing directly with the publishers. 

[ggP By engaging in this business young men will educate 
themselves in that knowledge of the country, and of men and things, 
which is acquired only by traveling and observation, and which is 
recognized by all as essential to every business man. 

Old agents, and all others who want the Best Paying Agen- 
cies, will please send for circulars and see our terms, and 
compare them and the character of our works, with those of 
other publishers. 

Address, NATIONAL PUBLISHING CO., 

At either of the following Places, (whichever is nearest to you) : 

19 INortli Seventh Street, FhiladelpHia, Fa., 
lie East Randolph Street, Oliioago, 111. 
4=10 Market Street, St. 3L.oxi.is, Mo. 



iST* The following pages contain a Catalogue of some 
of our most valuable and popular Works, a specimen 
copy of either of which will be sent by mail, postage 
paid, to any address, on receipt of price. 



THE 

LIGHT IN THE EAST. 

A COMPREHENSIVE RELIGIOUS WORK, 

EMBRACING THE LIFE OF 

OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST, 

AND THE LIVES OF HIS HOLY APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS. 

BY REV. JOHN FLEETWOOD, D.D. 

Together with the LIVES of the PATRIARCHS and PROPHETS, and of the MoS 

Eminent Christian MARTYRS, FATHERS and REFORMERS. To 

which is added the HISTORY OF THE JEWS, from the 

Earliest Times to the Present Day, and a 

HISTORY OF THE RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS OF THE WORLD, 

BOTH ANCIENT A.1XT> MODERN. 



ILLUSTRATED WITH OVER 200 FINE ENGRAVINGS. 

The object of this work is to present to the reader a full, comprehensive and intelligent 
account of the Life, Ministry and Sufferings of our Blessed Redeemer. On all sides there is 
a growing demand for some plain and forcible illustration of the Life and Teaching:; of Our 
Saviour while on earth, which, uninarrcd by the errors and theories of modern philosophy, 
shall serve as an assistance to the faithful student of the Gospel story. Su^h a work is needed 
in every household to strengthen the faith of the aged, and to keep the feet of the young in 
the narrow way. The Lives of the Apostles and Evangelists are given in full, and to them are 
added biographies of the other New Testament characters. It will be found a great assist- 
ance to an intelligent comprehension of Christ's ministry to be thoroughly instructed in tho 
history of those who were his intimate friends and the agents of his power. 

The Lives of the Patriarchs and Prophets embrace comprehensive accounts of the most 
noted Old Testament characters, a knowledge of whose lives is essential to a prop r under- 
standing of that of our Saviour, who was the fulfilment of the Old Dispensation. 'J he work 
would be incomplete did it fail to trace the spread of Christianity from the days of the 
Apostles to the modern era. This is done in a series of biographies of the Early Christian 
Martyrs, Fathers and Reformers, embracing a period from St. John to the Reformation, and 
showing how the truth was established and witnessed, under God, by those noble men. To 
this is added a History of the Jews from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, which is very 
complete and comprehensive, and no more interesting narrative is to be found in the pages 
of history. 

The History of all Religions Denominations comprises a series of comprehensive accounts 
of the various forms of truth and error which have prevailed in the world. A proper under- 
standing of this subject will do much to soften denominational asperities and to teach us 
that respect for the religious belief of our brethren, which should be the distinguishing mark 
of a Christian. The Chronological Table will be found especially valuable and interesting, 
and will enable the reader to mark the progress of the outside world, while Israel was work- 
ing out her destiny. 

One of the great merits of this work is that it comprises in one large volume that which 
io usually spread out through a great many books, so that it may be said it is in effect a 
complete library of religious literature in itself. The Editor has been extremely desirous 
of including in it all that it is essential for a Christian to know, and much that is pleasant U 
read of. Nothing necessary to a full and intelligent understanding of the truths of revealed 
religion has been omitted, and the book is perfectly free from sectarian bias, its aim being to 
promote the cause of the one indivisible Church. 

In one large octavo volume of 850 pages, embellished and illustrated with more than 200 
fine Engravings, by the best artists of England and America, and furnished to Subscribers, 

Elegantly Bound in Fine Morocco Cloth at $4.00 per copir. 

" " In Red Roan, Full Gilt Back at 4.75 " " 

•« « In French Morocco, Full Gilt Panelled Sides....at 6.00 ** 

AGENTS WANTED. Address, NATIuNAL PUBLISHING CO., 
Philadelphia, Pa. ; Chicago, 111. ; or, St. Louis, Mo. 



THE UNDEVELOPED WEST; 

OR, 

FIVE YEARS IN THE TERRITORIES. 

Being a Complete History of that Vast Region Between the 

Mississippi and the Pacific; its Resources, Climate, 

Inhabitants, Natural Cariosities, Etc* 

LIFE A.1STID ^ID^EJSTTTTHE 

ON 

PRAIRIES, MOUNTAINS, AND THE PACIFIC COAST. 

WITH 240 FINE ILLUSTRATIONS, FROM ORIGINAL SKETCHES AND PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEWS 
OF THE SCENERY, LANDS, MINES, PEOPLE, AND CURIOSITIES OF THE GREAT WEST. 

SY J. H. BEADLE, 

Western Correspondent of the Cincinnati Commercial, and author of " Life in Utah" etc. 



Mr. Beadle spent five years in the Great West, for the especial purpose of exploring 
the country. Setting out on foot, he traversed the States of Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, 
and Kansas, as well as Dakotah and the Indian Territory ; visiting in person all that 
was worth seeing ; examining the lands, living and conversing with the people, and 
gaining for himself a fund of information, based upon his own observations and discover- 
ies, more extensive than one man in a million can obtain. 

He visited the rich mines of Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and Idaho ; spent months wif 
the Indians, both friendly and hostile, studying their character and habits ; explc 
the various routes of the Great Pacific Railways ; passed into California and Oregon 
there enjoyed peculiar advantages for seeing and investigating the resources and c 
ties of those remarkable States. He spent considerable time in New Mexico, Ax. 
and Texas, and his account of his observations and discoveries in those strange ana 
deeply interesting portions of our country will commend his book to the careful conside- 
ration of the scholar as well as to all who seek practical information or amusement. 
His only companions in his travels in Arizona were Indian guides, and for weeks during 
his explorations in that Territory he never saw the face of a white man. 

The book is full of information and facts of the greatest importance, such as could be 
obtained only by going after them, as this indefatigable explorer did. 

All sorts of people figure in this work : the hardy frontier farmer ; the wary hunter 
and trapper ; the reckless miner ; the cruel and degraded savage ; the hard-working 
" Heathen Chinee; " the " much-married" Mormon ; the strange remnants of the once- 
powerful Aztec race — all these figure with the naturalness of life in this remarkable book. 

These new States and Territories contain incomparably the grandest scenery in the 
world, and some of the richest resources of the American Continent. Probably no other 
man has ever journeyed so extensively among them as Mr. Beadle — certainly no one so 
competent to describe what he has seen. 

*&* To prospective emigrants and settlers in the " Far West," this history of that vast region 
will prove an invaluable assistance, supplying, as it does, a want long felt of a full, authentic and 
reliable guide to climate, soil, products, distances, localities, means of travel, etc. This work may 
be relied on, for it contains no second-hand information. 



The great desire everywhere manifested to obtain this work, and the low price at which 
it is sold, combined with the very liberal commissions, make it the best opportunity for 
Agents to make money ever heard of in the history of books. They are meeting with 
unprecedented success, selling from FIFTEEN to'TWENTY, and some even as high 
as THIRTY copies per day. 

Senfl for Circulars, and see our Terms, ant a Fill Description of the Wort 
Address, NATIONAL PUBLISHING CO., 

Philadelphia, Pa. ; Chicago, 111. ; or, St. Louis, Mo. 
IN ONE LARGE ROYAL OCTAVO VOLUME OF 82S PAGES, PRICE M 7MS CLOTH. 




NEW ILLUSTRATED 

Devotional & Practical 

WAWU£¥ BIB 

With over 45 Fine Scripture Illustrations. 

^ • m — ■ 

In addition to the Old and New Testaments, Apocrypha, Concordance 
And Psalms in Metre, it contains a large amount of explanatory matter, 
compiled with great care, and furnishing a complete encyclopedia of Bibli* 
cal knowledge. 

The following are among its leading features : 

1. A History of all the existing Religious Denominations in the world, and 
the various Sects, both ancient and modern. 

2. A complete and practical household Dictionary of the Bible, comprising 
its Antiquities, Biography, Geography and Natural Histor}', carefully abridged 
from the distinguished and popular author, William Smith, LL. D. Expound- 
ing every subject mentioned in the Bible; giving the most comprehensive, 
correct, and useful information possible, and guiding all to a higher apprecia- 
tion of the correctness, authority and harmony of the Holy Scriptures. 

3. A beautiful Lithographic Family Record ; A very elegant and unique 
Marriage Certificate ; and a Photographic Album for Sixteen Portraits. 

4. Over 450 fine Scripture Illustrations, accurately showing the Manners 
and Customs of the Period, Biblical Antiquities and Scenery, Natural History, 
etc. ; the Wanderings in the Wilderness, showing the Camp of the Israelites, 
Standards of the Twelve Tribes, etc. ; Illustrations of the Tabernacle, and 
Solomon's Temple ; Topographical Sketch of the Holy Land, with Maps and 
Panoramic Views of the Country as occupied by the different Tribes, etc , etc. 

5. A Table of Contents of the Old and New Testaments, so arranged that 
any subject or occurrence mentioned in the Bible can be readily referred to. 

6. Nearly One Hundred Thousand Marginal References and Readings 
arranged in the centre of the page. 

7. A History of the Translation of the Bible ; and Chronology of the Booka 
of the New Testament, with the Times and Places at which they were written. 

8. A Harmony of the Four Gospels, and Analysis of the Old and NeW 
Testaments. 

The following are specimens of the letters that we have received from 
Clergymen, and from agents -who are selling our Bibles. 

New Milford, Susquehanna Co , Pa. 
NATIONAL PUBLISHING CO. 

"Gentlemen : — You get up the best Bible in the market. I can get fifty 
certificates to that effect. A $12. Bible has just been delivered in this County, 
and persons who bought it are anxious to trade even for your $8.50 B'ble." 
" Yours, Respectfully, MATTHEW FREEMAN." 



Mr. J. Barnes, our Agent at St. James, Phelps Co., Mo., writes : — " The 
Bibles you sent me surprise the people. They pronounce tlman the finest 
-ever brought into this County." 



From Rev. J. G. ATonforl, D. Z)., Cincinnati, 0. 

"This Family Bible is of inestimable value. Its pictures impress sacred 
characters and scenes upon the imagination, and its maps, tables and marginal 
references make it the best ol all Commentaries. Let no family that can afford 
it be without this large, well printed, handsomely bound and illustrated copy 
of the Word of God." 

J. L. Morrison, of Eldorado, 0., writes : — " Your Bible is the best-selling 
book I ever tried. I sold 115 copies in Adams Township, and 75 copies in 
Newberry Township. I have been engaged in selling books bv subscription 
for the past fifteen years, and your Bible gives better satisfaction than any 
book 1 ever sold." 

Rev. R J. Kellogg writes : — "I have carefully examined the New Illustrated 
Family Bible, published by the National Publishing Co., and have no hesita- 
tion in pronouncing it the best edition of the Bible I ever saw. 

Its numerous marginal references, tables and treatises, definitions and ex- 
planations, Scriptural illustrations and descriptions, Bible emblems and symbols, 
make it of great worth and unbounded interest and value to every reader of the 
inspired word." 

William Chinnock, of North Bloomfield, O., writes:— "I really like to sel 
this Bible. Every one is delighted with it, and if it is possible they will have 
it. I think it will have a larger sale than any other Bible ever published. My 
sales in Orwell Township foot up 72 Bibles and 39 copies of the other works." 



G. W. Ellis, of Linton, Ind., writes :— " I have sold 52 Bibles ; 38 of them 
in one Township. My subscribers are all well pleased with them. One man 
says he would not take $25. for his $15. Bible, and do without one of the kind. 
Others say they would not take $20." 

WE APPEXD THE FOLLOWING REPORTS FROM AGEXTS. 

D. J. Cox, of Jackson, Miss., sold 45 Bibles in three days. 
R. P. Goodlett, of Dardanelle, Ark., sold 68 Bibles in eight days. 
Mrs. H. Vansize, of Ada, Michigan, sold 140 Bibles in four weeks. 
W. L. Davidson, of Gibson Co., Tenn., sold 66 in one week. 

N. Harris, of Larissa, Texas, writes : — " I sold fifty-one copies of your 
Bible last week. It is the book to make money on. 11 

Rev. W. H. Dickert, of Pomaria, Newberry Co., S. C, writes: — " Youi 
Bible is pronounced the best and neatest bound book ever sold in the South. 
The people are astonished to see such a Bible for the money." 



It is printed from large, clear new t} r pe, on fine white paper made expressly 
for this Bible, and contains ^150 pages, and over 450 fine Scripture Illustrations, 
and is bound in the most handsome and substantial manner. 

In Arabesque Leather, Marbled Edges, - at $ 8.50 per Copy. 
■ " " Gilt " - at 10.00 " " 

In French Morocco, Full Gilt, Paneled Sides, at 15.00 " " 

Bibles are always in demand, and you can often sell a really 
valuable, handsome and cheap one to persons who will buy no 
other book* 

A P'T'NTnnQ "XKF A "NP I ' WT\ — Send f° r circulars containing terms to 

/i.\jrJjlN ID VV .rLlN i JulJ Agents, and a fuller description of our Bible. 

Address, NATIONAL PUBLISHING CO, 

Philadelphia, Pa. ; Chicago, I1L ; or, St, Loiiis, Mo. 



HISTORY- OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT 

OR, THE 

FARMERS' WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 

Being a Full and Authentic Account of the Struggles of the American 
Farmers Against the Extortions of the Railroad Companies. 

Iilxistra-ted. \^itlx GO Fine Engravings and Portraits. 

The most remarkable and powerful movement of the present day is, unquestionably, 
the war which the Farmers of the United States are Paging against the Monopolies of 
all kind i that have for so long been robbing the people and oppressing the toiling por- 
tion of our community. The author began at an early day to investigate this great move- 
ment, and has closely watched its steady development. Ills intimate acquaintance with 
the leading officers of the National and State Granges, from whom he has received much 
valuable assistance, and his thorough knowledge of the Western and Southern State-, 
and of the Railroad Systems of our country, peculiarly qualified him to write this work. 

It is divided into four parts ; the first of which is devoted to a discussion of the 

RAILROAD MONOPOLIES. 

And treats of the Railroad System of the United States; its wonderful growth and 
prosperity; of the Defects of this System; its failure to redeem its promises, and its 
gradual degeneration into stock gambling. 

Of Railroad Greed and Rapacity; showing how the Railroads rob the people; how 
they extort money from them, and compel them to submit to whatever wrongs they may 
see fit to inflict upon them. 

Of Corruption among Railroad Officials ; of the efforts of Railroad Managers to brihe 
and demoralize the Legislative and Judiciary powers of the General and State Govern- 
ments ; giving full details of the infamous Railroad Lobbies. 

Of the Land Grab System ; showing the enormous extent to which the people have 
been plundered by the Railroads. 

Part III. is devoted to an account of 

THE FARMERS' WRONGS. 

And treats of the Agricultural classes of the United States ; showing how they are 
overcharg •<! and robbed of the just dues of their labor, and the causes of these evils. 

( )f Railroa 1 Extortion ; showing how high freights oppress the Farmers, and affeot the 
value of both land and products. 

Of the .Middlemen ; showing how the Farmer is placed by a false system at the mercy 
of the Middlemen ; how he is overcharged and robbed by the dealers, upon whom he has 
to depend; how they are growing richer, while he is growing poorer. 

Of the Manner in which Agricultural Machinery and Implements are sold; showing 
how 7 Fanners are overcharged for them ; with sound practical views for thinking Farmers. 

Of tlv.' Many Evils which come directly home to the Farmers; giving the views of the 
leading agriculturists, and valuable suggestions for remedying these evils. 

Part IV. is devoted to a history of the 

ORDER OF PATRONS OF HUSBANDRY. 

Giving an account of its rise and progress ; the causes which led to the establishment 
of the Order, its present condition, and future prospects. 

Of the Grange as the Protector of the Farmers ; showing how it proposes to secure for 
them a fairer return for their labor, and its power to accomplish its object. 

Of the Grange as the Instructor and Guide of the Farmer ; shewing how it makes better 
farmers and better men and women of its members ; its lofty aims and glorious accom- 
plishment of them. 

These are but few of the many topics embraced in this remarkable volume. The 
author treats his subject from a practical stand-point, and has produced a work which no 
one, who wishes to keep himself informed upon the most important and exciting ques- 
tion of the day, can afford to be without. 

It is comprised in one large octavo volume of 534 pages, embellished with numerous 
fine engravings and portraits of Leading Grangers, and will be furnished to subscribers, 
In Extra Pine Green Cloth, - at $2.75 per Copy. 

In Fine Leather (Library Style), - - at $3.25 per Copy. 

agents wanted. Addre^, NATIONAL PUBLISHING CO., 

Philadelphia, Pa.; Chicago, 111.; or, St. Louis, Mo. 



LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF M YORK LIFE ; 

OR, THE 

SIGHTS AND SENSATIONS OF THE GREAT CITY. 

A WORK DESCRIPTIVE OP THE 

CITY OF MW YORK IN ALL ITS VARIOUS PHASES. 

fTS SPLENDORS AND WRETCHEDNESS; ITS HIGH AND LOW LIFE; ITS MARBLE PALACES 
AND DARK DENS; ITS ATTRACTIONS AND DANGERS; ITS RINGS AND FRAUDS; ITS LEAD- 
ING MEN AND POLITICIANS; ITS ADVENTURERS; ITS MYSTERIES AND CRIMES. 

ILLUSTRATED WITH NEARLY 2 00 FINE ENGRAVINGS. 

New York is the most wonderful of all the many wonderful sights of this great country, 
and is always a theme of inexhaustible interest to the other portions of the Union. It is 
constantly changing, and growing more magnificent and interesting every year. Thousands 
who consider themselves well acquainted with the Great City, by reason of their numerous 
visits to it, find, upon returning after an absence of but a few years, that it has changed to 
an extent which makes it almost a new city to them. They see new sights every time they 
come to New York, and have something more wonderful to tell of every time they return home. 

The author of this work needs no endorsement,- his long residence in New York, and very 
intimate acquaintance with metropolitan life in all its varied phases, peculiarly fit him for 
the preparation of such a book ; and he has produced in this work a vivid and life-like picture 
of the Great City, painting its Lights and Shadows with a bold and skilful hand, and repro- 
ducing its brilliant Sights and wonderful Sensations with a graphicness which renders it the 
most absorbing and fascinating book that has ever been written upon the subject. 

IT TREATS 

Of the City of New Y/ork; giving a concise and interesting account of its growth and progress 

from its first settlement. 
Of the magaificeat public? and private buildings of the city; of its gardens, parks, 

marble palaces, prisons, and public wjrks. 
Of Broadway; the mist beautiful and wonderful street in the world, with full accounts of its sights 

by day and night. 
Of New York Sjciety; showing of what it is composed, and revealing a fearful story of fashiona- 

ble follies, and dissipations. 
Of the " Rings " of New York ; showing how the city is plundered by a few unscrupulous men. 
Of Fifth Avenue, with its miles of palaces, its people, and its sights; showing the interior of one of 

the most fashionable mansions. 
Of Wall Street; with vivid sketches of the men and mysteries of "Wall Street; how fortunes are 

made and lost in a day ; how bogus stock companies originate, and how the bubbles burst. 
Of the Hotels ; showing how these magnificent establishments are conducted. 

Oi the Central Park, its lawns, lakes, rambles, statuary, museums, and summer and winter sports. 
Of the Detectives, with absorbing accounts of some of their most celebrated cases. 
Of Fashionable Scores, with a complete description of Stewart's great retail store, its attached, 

customers, amount of sales, etc. 
Of the Five Points and its History, a fearful account of misery, suffering, and crime; of the 

dark dens and filthy lanes of the Five Points; and of the dwellers in this section. 
Of Crime and Criminals, with sketches of the Professional Thieves; the Pick-pockets, Female 

Thieves, River Thieves ; the •• Fences; " the Pawnbrokers; the Roughs, and others. 
Of the Theatres; of actors, actresses, ballet girls and their mode of life; Music and Beer Gardens. 
Of the Social Evil; of the Lost Sisterhood; of Houses of Assignation; of Street Walkers, Concert 

Saloons and Waiter Girls ; of Masked Balls, D nice Houses, and Harry Hill's; of Personals and Matri- 
monial Advertisements; of the Midnight Mission; Child Murder; the Abortionists and their Victims. 
Of the Poor of New York; of death in th.3 cellars, and suffering in its most appalling form. 
Of Black Mailers; ot sharpen), male and female, and their victims ; of swindlers, gift enterprises, 

mock auctions. '-Cheap Johns," impostors, quack doctors, clairvoyants, and fortune tellers. 
Of Gambling Horses; of gamblers and their victims; of lotteries and policy dealing. 
Of the Custom House, its inside workings, and many interesting details. 
Of James Fisk, Jr , with a full account of his remarkable career and tragic death. 
Of all that is great, noble, mysterious, brilliant, startling, genteel, or shabby, and 

all that is interesting in the Great City. 

No volume ever written concerning New York contains so much information of use and 
interest to the reader. It is in all respects the most brilliant, reliable and fascinating work 
now offered to the public. Though it discusses the darker sides of city life, it does so with 
delicacy and candor, and the book is an emphatic warning against the vices of the city. 

In one large Royal Octavo volume of 8oO pages, embellished and illustrated with nearly 
200 fine Engravings of noted places, life and scenes in New York ; and furnished to Sub 
aeribers, elegantly bound, 

In Fine Morocco Cloth, in English or German at $3.50 per copy. 

In Fine Lsather, (Library Style,) in English or German. -at 4.00 " " 

agents wanted. Address, NATIONAL PUBLISHING CO., 

Philadelphia, Pa. ; Chicago, 111. ; or, St. Louis, Mo. 



Tliis very interesting and valuable Work will be sent to 
auy address, postage paid, on receipt of Price. 

SEXUAL SCIENCE; 

INCLUDING ' 

MANHOOD, WOMANHOOD, 
THEIR MUTUAL TnTER-RELATIONS ; 

LOVE, ITS LAWS, POWER, ETC. 

By Prof. O. S. Fowler. 

" Sexual Science " is simply that great code of natural laws by which the Almighty re- 
quires the sexes to be governed in their mutual relations. A knowledge of these laws is of 
the highest importance, and it is the general ignorance of them which swells the list of disease 
and misery in the world, and wrecks so many lives which would otherwise be happy. 

THE WORK TREATS OF LOVE-MAKING AND SELECTION, showing how love 
affairs should be conducted, and revealing the laws which govern male and female attraction 
and repulsion; what qualities niiike a good, and a poor, husband or wife, and what giver 
persons should select and reject; what forms, sizes, etc., may, and must not, intermarry. 

OF MARRIAGE, its sacredness and necessity, its laws and rights ; of perfect and miserable 
unions; and of all that it is necessary to know concerning this most important relation in life. 

OF BEARING AND NURSING. — This portion being a complete encyclopedia for pro* 
spective mothers, showing how to render confinement easy, and manage infants; every young 
wife requires its instructions as affecting her embryo. 

OF SEXUAL RESTORATION.— This is a very important part of the work; because 
almost all men and women, if not diseased, are run down. The laws of sexual recuperation 
are here, for the first time, unfolded, and the whole subject thoroughly and scientifically 
treated: giving the cause and cure of female ailments, seminal losses, sexual impotence, etc. 

And Tells how to promote sexual vigor, the prime duty of every man and 

woman. 
How to make a right choice of husband or wife ; what persons are suited to 

each other. 
How to judge a man or woman's sexual condition by visible signs. 
How young husbands should treat their brides ; how to increase their love 

and avoid shocking them. 
How to avoid an improper marriage, and how to avoid female ailments. 
How to increase the joys of wedded life, and how to increase female passion. 
How to regulate intercourse between man and wife, and how to make it 

healthful to both ; ignorance of this law is the cause of nearly all the woes of marriage. 
How to have fine and healthy children, and how to transmit mental and 

physical qualities to offspring. 
How to avoid the evils attending pregnancy, and how to make child-bearing 

healthful and desirable. 
How to prevent self-abuse among the young, and how to recognize the signs 

of self-abuse and cure it. 
How intercourse out of wedlock is injurious ; a warning to young men. 
How to restore and perpetuate female beauty, and how to promote the growth 

of the female bust. 
How to be virtuous,, happy, healthful and useful, by a rigid compliance with 
the laws of sexual science. 
There is scarcely a question concerning the most serious duties of life which is nat fully 
and satisfactorily answered in this book. Such a work has long been needed, and will be 
found invaluably >to every man and woman who has arrived at years of discretion. It should 
be read especially by the married, and by those who have the care of children, and it will 
carry happiness with it wherever it goes, by diffusing knowledge on those subjects concern- 
ing which it has, until now, been almost impossible to obtain reliable information. The 
book is pure and ekvated in tone ; eloquent in its denunciations of vice ; and forcible in ita 
warnings against th^ secret sins which are practiced with impunity even in the family circle. 
In one large royal octavo volume of 930 pages, embellished and illustrated with numerous 
Engravings, and furnished to Subscribers, 

Bound in Extra Fine Cloth at $3.75 per Copy. 

Bound in Fine Leather, (Library Style,) at $4.50 " 

AGENTS WANTED. Address, NATIONAL PUBLISHING CO., 
Philadelphia, Pa. ; Chicago, 111. ; or, St Louis, Mo. 

LEJL'O? 



